6767 B62 ,^^-''^^'' 1^% r-, h^^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY if 'W^ l\ W' GIFT OI- Peter Thorton Schneck CORNELL UNlVEFtSITV LIBRARY 3 1924 051 588 634 ^', M ' — \ * ^jv''*'* English Art IN 1884 ILLUSTRATED BY FACSIMILE SKETCHES BY THE ARTISTS EDITED BY HENRY BLACKBURN EDITOR OF "ACADEMY NOTES;" LECTURER ON ART; AUTHOR OF "BRETON FOLK;" "NORMANDY PICTURESQUE; " ARTISTS AND ARABS," ETC. WITH TEN FULL-PAGE STEEL ENGRAVINGS NEW YORK D . A P P L E T O N AND COMPANY 72 FIFTH AVENUE 1895 COPYRIGHT, 1SS4, 1894 By D. APPLETON and COMPANY No. 389. "The Hcrring-Alarket at Sea." Colin Hunter. PREFACE The art of England, as represented in painting, water-colors, and sculpture, is so full of activity and resource, that it has been thought desirable to gather into one compendious volume an indication of the work of a year. In the galleries containing new pictures, there have been exhibited in London alone, during the past year, upward of five thousand works. Of these, nearly three hundred are sketched in this volume, generally by the artists themselves. They have been very carefully selected from the regular exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gal- lery, and show the best and most representative examples of English contemporary art. The majority of English pictures pass annually into private hands, and the American public would hardly be aware of their existence, vi Preface. were it not for the publication of engravings and etchings. But no engravings or etchings could keep pace with the art activity of Eng- land,^' and it became necessary to devise some simple means of pre- senting to the public an indication, or outline, of the art of the year. It is maintained by some writers that the English school of paint- ing is, at the present time, the first in the world ; that there is a wider measure of success among its foremost men, and more individu- ality and interest in the work of the younger, than in any other school. Certainly, as regards portraiture, the country of Gainsborough and Reynolds would seem to be again first in the field ; and, in land- scape, the country of Turner and David Cox is producing work from which foreign countries derive much of their inspiration. It is not the purpose of this publication, which should be more descriptive than critical, to discuss the comparative merits of modern schools, but rather to direct attention to a powerful factor in " the year's art." The English figure-painters, headed by such artists as Sir Frederick Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, E. Burne -Jones, J. E, Millais, Holman Hunt, G. F. Watts, L. Alma-Tadema, E. J. Poynter, and others, are producing work equal to any period in the history of art. As compared with the Paris Salon^ there have been few large and important pictures exhibited ; but, on the other hand, it would be difiicult to point to greater technical successes, or to modern paint- ings on which more skill, labor, and cultivation, had been bestowed, than on the '•'■ Cymon and Iphigenia'' (page 2), by Sir Frederick Leigh- ton; the '■'■Hadrian in Britain" (page 4), by L. Alma-Tadema; or the * The number of pictures sent in to the Royal Academy alone last spring was eight thousand and ninety-three, of which eighteen hundred and fifty-six were exhibited. Preface. vii ^^ King Cophetua'' (page 141), by Burne -Jones. Mr. Holman Hunt has been engaged for five years on one picture, and Mr. G. F. Watts and Mr. E. J. Poynter have contributed little to the year's exhibitions; the latter having been engaged, with Sir Frederick Leighton, on designs for the decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The influence of such artists and the teaching in our schools have raised the standard in drawing and composition in a remarkable man- ner during the last few years. But variety of character and individu- ality are still the marked characteristics of English work, students in England being less influenced by any master's style than in the atelien of Paris or Munich. In landscape it will be observed that English artists are not occu- pied in composing pictures like Turner or Claude ; they are followers rather of that school of landscape-painting which found its best expres- sion in the work of Constable and Crowe, and, in pure water-colors, in the drawings of David Cox and Dewint. The sentiment of land- scape is less considered than quality and truth to nature. Thus, without entering into a discussion of comparative merits, it may be pointed out that the art of England has qualities and charac- teristics which should be more widely known ; and when the great barriers against progress — protective tariifs — shall be broken down, a knowledge of English art may become as wide-spread as that of its literature, and a love for it be as deeply implanted in American soil. Of the illustrations in " English Art " a few words must be said. When, just ten years ago, the possibility of obtaining an exact fac- simile of an artist's pen-drawing on a "relief-block, to print with the type, was first practically demonstrated, it opened out a wide field of interest and usefulness. By means of the invention of photo-mechanical engraving we are enabled to present to the reader of these pages the very hand-work of the artist side by side with the text. The communi- cation between the artist and the public has thus become very rapid and direct. The artist, having completed his picture, puts down on paper, in the fewest lines, the leading features or accents of it ; this memo- randum or sketch is reproduced without the aid of the wood-engraver, and, by means of the printing-press, multiplied over the world. There is no attempt, or should be no attempt, at making a finished picture ; the object is to indicate, in the fewest lines and in the most direct way, what the artist had in his mind. To some artists this power is given in an exceptional degree. Sir John Gilbert, the veteran illustra- tor, in his sketch, on page i6, of the weary horseman on the morn- ing of the battle of Agincourt, indicates exactly the character and composition of his picture. More subtly expressed in these pages — so tenderly, indeed, that we wonder at the power which conveys an impression by such simple means — is the disturbed little face in Mar- cus Stone's painting entitled '■'■Fallen out^" on page 21. No elabo- rate wood-engraving would have done this for us on the small scale necessary. Again, Mr. Eyre Crowe, in the sketch of his pict- ure of the little scholars at St. Maclou, Rouen (page 23), tells the public what he saw as clearly as in the painting. And in many other figure-subjects the story is told by this process in a very few lines indeed. In portraiture, illustrations are of necessity less interesting, but the sketch on page 155, of Millais's portrait of Lord Lome, from the Grosvenor Gallery, gives the character of it exactly, and it is the style of a portrait we seek to know. In landscape we may often obtain an accurate idea not only of Preface. ix the composition, but of the sentiment of a picture, as, for instance, of the quietness in Mr. Parton's autumn scene, " The Vale of Light^'' sketched on page 97, and of the wind in the trees in " ^^i Wintry Dirge'' (page 103), by Alfred East. This system of expression, of communication between two minds by means of a few touches, is the great art of the illustrator. It has been shown in a high degree in the war sketches by Detaille in Paris- ian newspapers. But the tendency of all illustrators is to elaborate, and the fashion tends toward smooth and highly-finished illustrations everywhere. Even the French artists, imitating the English system of making sketches of their pictures exhibited in the Salon., tend to over-elaboration. In engravings of pictures there is generally too much given, and a pict- ure is presented to us which is far from the original. The most attractive reproduction is often one from which the individuality of the originator has passed away. In sketching a picture, the great art is ^-^ the art of leaving out^'"" and, looking to the future, it would be well for young artists ta make a study of expressing effects in the fewest lines. In this method of work we are approaching nearer in artistic value to the reproductions of drawings by Mantegna and Diirer, and to the etchings by Rembrandt ; the value of the new system, as com- pared with the old, being in the almost illimitable number of copies that may now be printed from a single block. In turning over a portfolio of engravings or etchings, or an ordi- nary illustrated book, we may linger admiringly on the perfection of the engraver's art ; but in this volume we should care as little for the method of reproducing an artist's sketch as for character in the hand- writing of a telegram. X Preface. Thus regarded, "English Art in 1884" will be found of great interest in drawing attention to the work of many artists whose pict- ures, from various causes, have never been illustrated before. And the possessor of this book will be a collector of autographs which will yearly increase in interest ; for never, we believe, in the history, of art has one volume contained the hand-work of so many men. Henry Blackburn. 103 Victoria Street, Westminster, August I, 1S84. *>t^* In the production of this volume I have to acknowledge the kind assistance of Mr. M. Phipps -Jackson and Mr. Frederick Wed- more. A number of the blocks are by the Lefman process, from a work entitled "The Royal Academy Illustrated." No. 9S6. " Water-Lilics and Poppies." W. J. Mucklly. No. 232. ''Victory." Thomas Blinks. 72 X48. CONTENTS THE ROYAL ACADEMY THE GROSVENOR GALLERY 139 JJIf^^T-MO t)l& C* No. 765. ^'Disputed Possession." W. B. Baird. LIST OF FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. SUBJECT. 1. H. M. S. "Galatea" on a Cruise 2. Oxen at the Tank : Geneva 3. The Rabbit on the Wall . 4. Hornby Castle, Yorkshire . 5. The Dog and the Shadow 6. The Young Mother 7. The Three Dogs 8. Weary ! 9. Attack and Defence to. The Eag-le's Nest ENGRAVER. O. W. Brierly . Sir Edwin Landseer Sir David Wilkie J. M. W. Turner Sir Edwin Landseer C. W. Cope . Sir Edwin Landseer E. Radford . j. c. horsley Sir Edwin Landseer A. Willmore. C. COUSEN. W. Greatbach. W. Radclyffe. C. Cousen. J. H. Robinson. C. Mottram. T. Brown. L. Stocks. A. Willmore. %* For Engravings in tlie text, see Index to Artists, at the end of the volume. DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. To make this work more thoroughly representative of English art, and at the same time to afford an opportunity of comparing earlier examples of contemporaneous artists, there has been added a series of ten full-page steel engravings from some of England's greatest painters. In the preface mention was made of the various processes of reproduction em- ployed in copying the subjects shown, and, while photo-methods are now commonly used, still no process can ever be expected to altogether supplant engraving on steel. By their introduction a more perfect comparison of reproductive methods is afforded. The first of these steel engravings, given as a frontispiece, represents " H. J/. ^. Galatea" in which his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh made his first cruise around the world during the years iS67-'68. It represents the vessel, a splendid frigate, on her passage from the Cape of Good Hope to Australia in October, 1867, when she experienced some very heavy weather, particularly when nearing the Island of St. Paul's, where the ship was caught in a cyclone, in which she was nearly laid upon her beam ends, and narrowly escaped the loss of her masts. It was probably the beginning of this incident that suo-- gested to the artist the subject of his picture, for the threatening clouds indicate the ap- proach of a storm, and the crew of the vessel are seen preparing for it by taking in sail. Mn Brierly accompanied the Duke of Edinburgh on his cruise, and his pencil was fre- quently engaged in depicting incidents of the voyage. He exhibited a sketch of the pic- ture from which our engraving is taken in the gallery of the Society of Water-Color Painters in 1872-73, and it resulted in a commission for the picture from his Royal Hio-h- ness. At that time the London Art Journal said of it : " It represents an English frigate sailing by moonlight under a goodly spread of canvas. We may accept the brave ship as the 'Galatea,' and Mr. Brierly has done honor to her, for there has never been exhibited a more perfect marine picture of its kind." Elsewhere the sketch was referred to as possessino- Description of the Engravings on Steel. xv " an indescribable poetic grandeur." The artist has achieved a well-merited reputation by many excellent historical marine pictures that he has since painted. " Oxen at the Tank " is a reproduction of one of Sir Edwin Landseer's drawings made in Geneva, when he visited that place in 1840. The sketch is one of the many found in his studio after his death, and one so highly prized that it sold for more than three hundred guineas. And yet there is scarce reason for surprise at this. Study the two heads for a few moments and observe how different are their expressions, though to an ordinary eye, noticing the animals as they move along the street, or even standing at the tank, little or no variation would be apparent. Observe, too, how different in form are the horns of the two animals — perhaps a small matter in itself, but certainly not so from a pictorial point of view. Indeed, the interest of the drawing centers in these two heads, which are instinct with animal life — though the life is just now of a dozy, dreamy kind — and beautiful in artistic arrangement, while most effective in the management of light and shade. The oxen are yoked together, and have most probably been at work in the streets ; their driver, the woman with a huge spreading hat, that serves the purpose of an umbrella in the rain and of a sunshade in the heat, has now brought them to the tank to drink ; they have evi- dently satisfied themselves, or they would not stand with such apparent indifference before the water ; the woman, with her hand on the back of the animal nearest to her, is watch- ing both patiently, to ascertain whether she may now venture to lead them away. The drawing was in pen and ink, slightly tinted, and in size about the same as that of our engraving. Mr. C. Cousen was the engraver. In Sir David Wilkie's " The Rabbit on the Wall" we have a picture that will always maintain a high rank, owing to its quiet, genuine humor and pleasant expression as well as for its technical qualities, which have rarely been excelled even by the best masters of the Dutch gent-e school. It tells its own story. The day's work is over, and a young rustic is amusing the younger members of the family by so placing his fingers as to produce a shadow on the wall like that of a rabbit. Even the mother seems amused, though doubt- lessly more at seeing the enjoyment of the children than from any special interest she may feel in the performance itself. The accessories of the picture are painted with much truth. The room appears to be that ordinarily used as the kitchen of the cottage, whose tenant is doubtless in comfortable circumstances, and is probably a bailiff or gamekeeper, for there is a fishing-rod attached to the beams of the ceiling, and a couple of wild ducks hang near the plate-rack on the wall ; a pony or donkey may be assumed to form part of the estab- lishment, for a bridle and blinkers are visible. The genius of Turner is undeniable, and while his great fame is that of a colorist, still his wonderful arrangement of light and shade, his judicious balancing of composition, and xvi Description of the Engravings on Steel. his exquisite atmosplieric effects are clearly manifest in the steel engraving of ''Hornby Castle, Yorkshire." This structure, portions of which date back to the Conquest, although the general aspect of the building is comparatively modern, is a few miles from Northal- lerton, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and is the seat of the Duke of Leeds. Standing out in bold relief is the castle itself, a conspicuous and picturesque object amid the sur- rounding scenery. Under the hill on the right, in the valley, is a small church, that pleas- antly breaks the monotony of the wooded heights beyond. In the foreground we have a thatched cottage of an English peasant, and he himself, it may be, is just back from a visit to the market town, for the mother of the home and her five children have come out into the road to meet him. A cow tied to the wall is yielding her milk to the dairymaid, while the cat, lapping up the remains from an upset pail in the roadside, sug- gests a possible surprise on the part of the animal. A pleasant stream winds in and out the landscape, with its course clearly indicated by the row of trees, and a bridge, seemingly far too high for the road that follows the water course, spans the stream a short distance beyond the cottage. Certainly this view of Hornby Castle and the adjacent country forms an exceedingly interesting landscape of a thoroughly English scene, and one that can not fail to be appreciated by any descendant of the great Anglo-Saxon people to whom so much of our American energy is due. ''The Dog and the Shaa'oza" is a comparatively early example of Sir Edwin Landseer's work, and now hangs in the Sheepshanks Gallery, forming part of the collection which was presented to the English nation in 1857. It was originally exhibited at the British Insti- tution in 1S26, the year in which the artist was elected an Associate of the Royal Acad- emy. Forty years later he was elected President of the Royal Academy, but declined the honor. The engraving is of special interest from the fact that it shows the care which Sir Edwin devoted to the landscape details of his earlier works. Every part of the picture seems to have been carefully studied, and the entire sketch is arranged with a distinct feel- ing for the picturesque. The subject of the scene is not very clear. Possibly the dog, in crossing the log bridge, has caught sight of his own reflection in the water, and, fearful lest the dainty morsel that he has just obtained may be taken from him by a rival, pauses for a moment to consider the matter. In Mr. C. W. Cope's " The Yotiiig Mother" we have one of those touching scenes of maternal happiness that appeal so effectually to every one. The young mother, apprehensive lest anything should disturb the slumbers of her darling, watches with tender solicitude over it while it rests. It was painted in 1S58, and is characterized by elegance of composition, much truthful feeling, and great liveliness of color. It is said that the artist is in the habit of takin.o" the members of his own family as his models. Description oj the Engravings on Steel. xvii Who can do justice to one of Sir Edwin Landseer's group of animals in a few words ? That he was the greatest animal painter of his time is beyond dispute. The drawing from which the ensfravincf of " Jlie Three Doo^s" was made is one of the many sold from his collection of sketches that were disposed of subsequent to his death. It probably was made in 1842-43, at the time when he drew so many sketches of the dogs belonging to the Queen and Prince Consort. As we look at this group we can not help wondering what they would tell us of their thoughts if they had but the gift of speech. That they are both thinking and observing is evident by the expression in the face of each, and though the heads are in different positions the eyes have almost a common focus of attraction. We " will not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau if dogs confabulate or no," but there is no doubt that they possess the power of communicating ideas, and even wishes, to each other in some inexplicable manner, for the records of the canine race have testified to this over and over again. The engraving is by C. Mottram. An exceedingly attractive and clever ge7tre picture is that represented in the engraving of " Weary !" from the painting by Edward Radford. The sunlight streaming in through the opening in the Httle attic room seems to indicate early morning, and the bowl and other articles on the improvised washstand serve to confirm this view. Her boy — for the upset toy-horse clearly shows that the child in bed is not a girl — still slumbers. The young woman has evidently risen early to finish some mending, as the garment on her lap and the spool of thread and scissors on the table clearly show. The monotonous " stitch, stitch, stitch " has wearied her, and she pauses for a moment to drink in the fresh air perhaps perfumed from the blossoms of the shrub that rests on the opening. The teapot and cup and saucer are doubtless from the supper of the evening previous. The black bottle is the one suspi- cious object, but we will venture to hope that it contains nothing stronger than milk. The surroundings are certainly not those of affluence, still there is an air of rcspectablity about the room that seems to deny absolute poverty. It is true, the old bed-covering has holes, but it suggests an heirloom that has come down from a worthy ancestor ; and even if the toes of the slippers are worn away, the buckles testify to former respectability. The artist has done his part with much care and attention to detail, especially in the imitation of the textile fabrics ; the figure of the woman is excellently modeled, and the face easy and natural. Perhaps she is thinking of some previous condition earlier in life, when her sur- roundings were more attractive. ''Attack and Defence'' is one of those charming pictures of merry youthfulness that J. Callcott Horsley so delights to represent. We may readily assume that the structure is a part of the old baronial mansion, Haddon Hall, in a room of which several pretty o-irls are vio-orously defending themselves from the assault of some cavaliers who have se- xviii Description of the Engravings on Steel. cured one of the gardener's ladders and are using it for the purpose of storming the for- tress. The brave leader has already suffered damage in the attack, for one of the fair de- fenders has with her fan knocked his plumed cap off his head, and is making strenuous efforts to repel the invader by harmless blows with her extemporized weapon, while another lady at the central window pours down a fire of bouquets. He, as well as the besieged, is dressed in the costumes of the time of Charles II. At a third window is another girl, apparently an unconcerned spectator, holding in her arms a pet spaniel ; and behind the lady in the center is an attendant, supplying the garrison with ammunition from a basket of flowers. At the bottom of the ladder is the old gardener, in league with the besiegers. He has left his work to aid in the attack, his clipping shears under his arm. He grasps the ladder firmly, and doubtless expects a suitable reward when the siege is raised or the fortress surrenders. The din of battle, too, has affected the dovecotes about the Hall, whose winged tenants, flying in aU directions, add greatly to the interest of a pic- ture as original in subject as it is clearly, elegantly, and impressively put on the canvas. Mr. Horsley is one of the oldest academicians, having been chosen to the Royal Academy as long ago as 1864. Our final picture is by Sir Edwin Landseer, and is an engraving of a picture in the Sheepshanks Gallery entitled " The Eagles Nest" and originally exhibited by the artist at the British Institution in 1834. It is a study of rocky mountain, grand in its varied forms and almost terrible in its utter gloominess. The eagle builds its eyrie in the lofti- est and most inaccessible spots that it can find, and certainly there seems but little doubt that the home chosen by the artist for these " royal birds " will not be disturbed by the intrusion of any human being. It is indeed a region of solitude and desolation ; and yet apparently not of the greatest altitude, judging from the range of distant mountain land, where a stream washes down a narrow channel of rock to feed the small lake in the foreoTOund of the picture. Through the interstices of rock on the right water is dripping down, adding its silvery and sparkling contribution to the same basin of reception. Seated on a projecting ledge of the hard granite is the female eagle, watching with open beak the return of its mate from some marauding expedition, and ready to relieve him of any food that he may have met with, that she may bestow a portion at least on the pair of eaglets which, among the sticks that form the crest, are on the lookout for whatever food their parent may have been able to procure for them. Evidences of former feasts lie around in the shape of whitened bones and what seems to be the skeleton of a hare. M. B. THE ROYAL ACADEMY. The one hundred and sixteenth exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, at Burhngton House, in London, contained eighteen huiidred and fifty-six works of art in painting in oils and water-colors, engraving, etching, architectural designs, and sculpture. There are nine rooms devoted to oil-paintings, of which the principal is the fine long Gallery III, where the banquets and other meetings are held, and where the president addresses the students at the annual giving of prizes. In this gallery the principal pictures of the year (works of members of the Academy, of whom there are forty, with a right to exhibit eight pictures each) are generally to be found on the line. Let us look first at the prominent features of this gallery. In the place of honor, in the center of the north wall, was a large picture by Sir Fred- erick Leighton, the president, a work upon which he has been long engaged, and upon the studies and models for which much has been written. It is by no means the most successful work of the painter, and interests us less than many earlier paintings — - such as the " Daplincforia]'' of 1876, and his grace- ful picture of " Wedded" exhibited two years ago. The paintmg of " Cynioii and IpJiigcnia " is No. 340. "M-g/a." P. H. Calderon, R.A.* ^^fined and scholarly; the subject grandly and (as " Empress of silence and queen of sleep," wc See in the Outline) Conventionally and decora- * The figures below the illustrations indicate the sizes of the pictures. The numbers are those of the official catalogues of the various public galleries where the pictures have been exhibited. 1 English Art in 1884. tively treated ; elaborate and highly finished, rich in color, and almost perfect in the drawing and arrangement of draperies. It is Boccaccio's rendering of the familiar story of Cymon and Iphigenia that the presi- dent has chosen for his theme. The scene is on the edge of a wood in the Island of Cyprus, where, "under the breath of a May night, is seen asleep a lovely lady, clad only in her subtile vesture, and with no guards excepting two sleeping attendants and a little child." t-' .f / rwi %Wi^^-^- -v.-fV 1': ^ #%^ ^iii'fem jte^;. - -^ ,^,■^lv^\v.i■^...-. .H.. -'^- No. 278. "Cymon and Iphigenia." Sir Frederick Leighton, P. R. A. 65 X 130. Near stands Cymon, the young peasant, transfixed by the sight of her beauty. To depict the gradual awakening of better thoughts and a higher life in an uneducated peasant, under the influence of Iphigenia's charms, has been the great effort of the painter — the refining influence of art upon the uncultivated being the moral of the story. In the absence of many pictures of high aim or intention, and considering the great want of thoroughness in modern work, this painting sets an example to students. The photogravure produced by Messrs. Goupil will give a good indication of the design. Sir Frederick Leighton takes much interest in this new and wonderful method of reproduction. Opposite to the foregoing is the principal contribution by J. E. Millais, R. A., a picture of five figures, for which the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars has been paid. The painter of a long line of celebrated pictures — of " TJic Hj/giiciiois'' of " The Gambler s Wife" of ''Aiitumn Leaves" of " TJie Yeoman of the Guarei" \ the greatest living portrait- painter, and, we might almost add, the greatest landscape-painter — has given us this year one subject-picture, lacking, it is true, the absorbing human interest of many of his former works, but bearing the mark of genius upon it as unmistakably as its predecessors. The I(oyal Academy. 54.} X 74*. No. 347. ''An Idyll, 1745." J. E. Millais, R. A. The scene is a wood by a cool rivulet — the period soon after the battle of Culloden — where three Scotch lasses are seated, listening to an English fifer-boy — who has come north with the troops — the latter clad in the crude -colored red -and -yellow uniform with white gaiters depicted in Hogarth's "March to Fmchley!' The interest centers, we might say culminates, in the figure of the boy playing, which is almost as power- ful, as a character-study, as the old " Yeoman of the Guardl' painted in 1877. It has been suggested that the boy-figure might with advantage have made one picture, and the three girls another. For the sake of har- mony and " keeping," this change might have been made with advan- tage, for the crudeness of the uniform, red, yellow, and white, the painter has rendered with such uncompromising force as seriously to detract from the beauty of the children, and to take our attention from the rich quality of much of the work. The painting has the peculiar charm which pervades all Millais's representations of children, and the composition is well indicated in the rough sketch. At the head of this gallery, in the center of the wall, was a large picture by L. Alma- Tadema, R. A. This painter has produced nothing so important in size or composition since " The Pictiu-e-Gallery " and " The Sculptiwe-Gallery" which were exhibited in the Academy in 1874 and 1875, ^"d are now in Mr. Gambart's villa at Nice. ''The Pottery" is in some sense a pendant to the foregoing. It represents the visit of the Emperor Hadrian, with his wife and attendants, to a Romano-British pottery. The following descrip- tion, from details communicated by the artist to the correspondent of a London newspaper, will be read with interest in connection with the outline on page 4 : " The exact locality of the manufactory is not signaled. We may suppose it to have been situated in the center of one of the great Roman colonies, and to have possessed show-rooms in which not merely the local ware, but specimens from all the famous kilns, could be inspected. We are not allowed to decide which of all the sorts presented to the emperor is actually being made by the fair-haired artisans whom we see at work under the archway of the staircase. Upon the stairs itself two half-naked men, girt with broad leather English Art in 1884. belts, are carrying specimen-trays up to the emperor. In the tray of the first of these, whose entire figure is seen on the right of the composition, the pecuHar drab pots made in the Upchurch marshes are presented to us ; while the man who follows him, and whose head and uplifted hands alone are visible, bears aloft a tray of nothing but the slate-colored ^ m^\% ■ v'^feV/f^ii^iJ^iiJJA X 6(yi. No. 245. ^^ Hadrian in Britain; visiting a Roniano-Britisli Pottery!' L. Alma-Tadema, R. A. Durobrivian-ware, which w^as made round Castor, in the valley of the Nen in Northamp- tonshire. " At the top of the staircase we see an open gallery filled with the distinguished Roman visitors. Hadrian himself, in a purple toga, stands at the head of the stairs, examining a The 1(02/ a/ Academy. vase with an expression of dignified affability. Tlie master-potter leans forward in the act of explanation, and we see his light red hair and beard in contrast to the black hair of all the Romans. Behind Hadrian stands his friend Lucius Varus, afterward father to the Emperor Commodus. He is in attendance on Hadrian, and keeps the rest of the suite a little in the background. He leans with a dandified air on a long staff, which is tipped with a little Venus carved in ivory. On the other side of the gallery the great ladies cluster round the potter's wife. She is represented as a blonde girl, of extremely fair skin, in a pale-blue dress ; her back is turned to us, and we can only judge of her beauty from the delicacy of her neck and shoulders. Mr. Alma-Tadema declares that he turned her face away because he despaired of doing justice to her fresh English beauty. She is talking to the Empress Sabina, Hadrian's wife, a dignified Roman matron, and to Balbilla, the friend of Sabina, the famous female wit whose Boeotian verses were inscribed by Hadrian's com- mand on the base of the Vocal Memnon. Between the groups there leans over the stair- case, in a lilac toga, Servianus, Hadrian's sister's husband. " The accessories of this interesting group of historical personages are full of ingenuity and suggestiveness, as always in Mr. Alma-Tadema's pictures. The architecture is rough, in red terra-cotta, which has been made on the premises ; for the master-potter, like a Doulton of to-day, makes at the same time the roughest things for practical uses, and the most delicate for ornamental uses. At the elbow of the staircase stands a beautiful black vase, which is a careful reproduction of the famous Colchester Pot, which was discovered in 1853; this has interesting reliefs running round it as a frieze. Another large and graceful vase is full of wall-flowers, and a great wreath of primroses is wound around it to show at what time of the year Hadrian's visit was made. The wall of the staircase is copied from a mosaic found on the floors of the famous Roman villa of Bignor, near Arundel, and Mr. Alma-Tadema considers that such walls and pavements as this made in mosaic would prob- ably be manufactured at such a pottery as he has painted, the tcssalcs being of terra-cotta and local stone. In the corner of the staircase, near the center of the picture, we see one of those interesting little bits of reproduction of antique life in which Mr. Alma-Tadema is so eminently happy. This is the altar of the household god. A snake is painted round it, and by a little lamp there is placed a votive offering of onions, sacred to the Penates. The potters have painted this inscription as a welcome to their emperor : ' Ave Imperator Cjesar Divi Trajani parth. filius Divi NervEe nepos Trajanus Hadrianus Locupletator Orbis.' English Art in 1884. Hadrian was not, indeed, declared lociiplctator by the senate till after the date of this picture, but Mr. Alma-Tadema thinks that it would probably be in some grateful colony that the title would first be, unofficially, suggested. "The painter possesses a unique collection of drawings of the Romano-British pottery, and he has visited most of the museums, and particularly those at Colchester, Maidstone, and Cirencester, to make studies for this picture." As a work of art, probably no painting has given the artist more labor, but the result as a whole can hardly be considered an artistic success. There is nothing in this large picture to equal in quality or charm " The Oleander " of last year. The design of " T//e Pottery'' is complicated, and seems to transgress many of the ordinary rules of composition, but the painting of the man's figure ascending the stairs has hardly been surpassed in any period of art ; certainly there was nothing to approach it, technically, in this year's exhibition. Some details also are painted in Mr. Alma-Tadema's best and strongest manner, but as a whole the picture fails — the effect of perspective is questionable, the great blank wall in the middle of the canvas is uninteresting, and the cutting off of the head of the lower figure carrying pots is unpleasing. We are made to care most for details, for the painting of flesh, for the texture of Hadrian's robe, and for the draperies and ornaments of the women. Thus, we might sum up Mr. Alma-Tadema's art, as shown in this picture, as eievotion to accessories, to technical triumphs of a high order. But Mr. Alma-Tadema, like Mr. Millais, is also great in portraiture, especially in the portraits of his friends. These were exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884. The " picture of the year," that is to say, the picture upon which more has been said and written than any other, is Mr. Orehardson's " Mariage de Convenances The three figures which we see in the sketch, in a curiously-empty apartment, have set half London talking during the month of May. The painter of Napoleon in 1880, and Voltaire in 1883, has achieved an extraordinary success in his '' Mariage de Convenances The figures (the lady in white-satin dress) are seen under a glow of subdued light from the colored lamp over the dinner-table ; the distribution of light and shade is very harmonious, and the management of color on the table laden with fruit most skillful. But the interest of the picture to the majority has been, so to speak, more literary than artistic ; it is the story, not altogether a pleasant one, that absorbs attention. Mr. George Augustus Sala, a great admirer of Mr. Orehardson's work, writes thus on the "JMariagc de Convenance" : "We are in the dining-room of a fashionable mansion, and Beatrice and Benedick have been dining en petite coniitt^ Dinner is over, dessert is being served, and the pair are being waited upon by a judicious butler. Beatrice is young, comely, and fully aware of her comeliness, and she is dressed in the strictest accordance The B^oyal Academy. with the latest behests of the ' Ladies' Gazette of Fashion.' Anon, you think, the brougham will be in attendance, the grande dame de par le monde will be carefully shawled and cloaked, and the loving couple will honor a box at the opera or a stall at the Hajanarket with their presence. But are they a loving couple 1 Alas and alack ! although Beatrice is youthful and fair and fascinating, Benedick is old — and not venerable. His valet has made the best of his master's sparse locks and grizzled mustache ; but he is beyond the help of valets, and even of the magician Truefitt himself. An excellent old gentleman, no doubt. Although he feebly wags his head over the glass which the butler is replenishing, he is evidently, as regards breeding, very high. A baronet probably ; member for his county 41 X 60. No. 341. " Afariage de Convcnance." W. Q. Orchardson, R. A. possibly ; evidently wealthy. Fond of antique silver, old books, old illuminated manuscripts. Well known at Christie's ; a member of several Pall Mall clubs. He grudges Beatrice nor diamonds, nor dresses from Worth, nor point-lace from Elise, nor bonnets from Louise, nor horses and carriages and Dutch pugs, nor trips to Nice or the Engadine — and it is a ' Mariagc dc Convcnancc\ " Only three personages in this domestic drama of fashionable life ? Why, the imagina- tion at once fills the dining-room, the servants' hall, the whole house with people knowing a variety of things, occult and awful. The brougham is driving up to the door of the great mansion ; but it is Black Care and not the groom who sits by the coachman's side, 8 English Art in 1884. At one end of the splendid dining-room table, laden with costly plate, with choice flowers and luscious fruit, cowers Caducity, humbled, vainly trying to preserve its dignity, labori- ously endeavoring to put a good face upon things, but hopelessly drifting into Fogyism, utterly unable to accept the situation, and ashamed of being old. In the shadows behind Benedick's chair seem to hover ' the Painful Family of Death, more hideous than their Queen ' — the ills that rack the joints or fire the veins, that strain every laboring sinew or in the deeper vitals rage. And at the other end of the table — a wide, wide gulf, not only of fruit and flower-decked damask napery, but of years, and imperfect sympathies, and unim- parted thoughts and blasted hopes yawning between them — sits Beatrice, young, beautiful, shapely, vascular, and in a silent, mad rage. She looks as though on but slight provocation she would tear her rich raiment from her shoulders, and wrench her rings from her fingers and her bracelets from her wrists, and fling the gewgaws at the head of her husband or of the judicious butler. "In the ' Mariage de Convenancel the handsome, willful, self-tormenting Beatrice, the eff'ete and dispirited but always high-toned and high-bred Benedick, and the judicious butler, who is so careful in whispering the precise date of the vintage of the Chateau Margaux, and is aware, besides, of such an alarming variety of things, are all adequately modeled, or, to speak more technically^ 'made out,' with due attention to the laws of convexity and concavity. Of the wealth and subtilty of expression in the faces of the three personages enough has been said in sketching the wholly imaginary drama in which they are taking part." Columns have been written in this strain, an extract from which may prove more interesting than dwelling entirely on the technical merits of this picture. Mr. Orchardson ranks high as a painter of genre, but, to get a more complete idea of his style and method, his smaller picture of " The Farmer s Daiigkier" in the Grosvenor Gallery this year, should be looked at in the section devoted to that gallery. " The Toast of the Kitcat Club" as presented to us by Mr. W. F. Yeames, R. A., is more interesting historically than for any special quality in the painting. In Mr. Orchardson's work there is much that is subtile and suggestive ; here in Mr. Yeames's picture, which hangs beside it, all is careful, literal, and, as far as possible, matter of fact. The members of the literary clubs in the last century were intimately associated with the society of the time, and there is nothing doubtful in the story that the little Lady Mary Pierrcpont was brought in to be admired and " kissed all round ! " The Whig gen- tlemen, we read, drank her health upstanding, gave her sweetmeats, and had her name cut on a drinking-glass in honor of her visit. " Never," writes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, " did I pass so happy an evening." Mr. Yeames has labored hard to give the portraits and The B^oyal Academy. costumes from the best authorities. Sir Godfrey Kneller is in the foreground ; next to him Garth ; Congreve turning in his chair ; Tonson, the pubhsher ; above him, Addison ; and Steele, with a wine-glass in his hand. Marlborough and others on the left of the picture. Alto- gether, in the lack of historic painting, of the first class, we are glad to welcome Mr. Yeames's work, and to reproduce it in our record of " English Art in 1884." 43 X 39- No. 332. " The Toast of the Kiteat Club:' W. F. Yeames, R. A. " It having fallen to the turn of the Duke of Kingston to propose a beauty as the annual toast of the club, he nominated his little daughter Lady Mary Pierrepont (afterward Lady Mary Wortley Montagu). Some of the members demurred, as they had not seen her. The duke sent for her, and when she arrived she was received with acclamations, her claims unani- mously allowed, and she was petted and caressed by all the eminent men present." Mr. Philip Calderon, R. A., is represented in his principal work by a single figure of "Nightl' which is sketched at the head of this chapter. Always with grace and refinement, as distinctive characteristics of his art, Mr. Calderon, when at his best, rises to the rank of those masters who, with poetic conception of a high order, have combined great technical 10 English Art in 1884. dexterity. This realization of his present subject is the life-size figure of a Greek girl rest- ing upon a marble seat, with the starlighted canopy of heaven above her, and in the dis- tance, upon a hill, Corinth, or some other city of Greece. The principal motive of the design is repose, whether in sentiment, color, or line. The deep-blue sky, the girl's seated figure, the upper half of which is draped in white, with dark-blue robe across her knees, and the delicate flesh-tints, altogether form a fine and harmonious picture. This, and another, entitled "Day" are to form part of the decoration of a dining-room in the house of a well- known art-collector in London. Mr. J. C. Horsley, one of the elder of the Royal Academicians, sends a picture of a country churchyard, with children and sheep that have strayed among the tombstones — a familiar enough subject in England, treated with simplicity and truth in all details. The large, heavy stone slabs, now almost discarded in Eng- land, the pretty lych-gate under the yew-tree, the group at the church- porch — are all portraits, so to spreak. A homely picture, without any special quality in the painting, of which a writer remarks : " We have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Horsley saw wiiat is here represented, for no artist would manufacture such a scene for himself The pretty children, with the glory of their young life fresh upon them, heedlessly hiding over the dead, who once prob- ably had done in like mirth what these little ones are doing — the pastor and his flock, nay, even the animals, the sheep, suggesting memorable words once spoken — everything intro- duced into the scene carries out, not without an occasional touch of pathos, the simple story of life and death the artist seeks to convey." One of the largest pictures in the Royal Academy is Mr. GoodalFs picture of " The FligJit into Egyptl' which faces the spectator as he enters the galleries. It is a powerful painting, much darker in tone than would appear from the sketch. The Pyramids have been painted often, and ''The Flight into Egypt" is no new subject for the artist; but Mr. Goodall's skill and knowledge of Eastern atmospheric effects endow the subject with new interest. In the absence of almost all religious subjects in the Academy, this picture is welcome to many. Another large picture by the same artist is called ''A New Light No. 272. ''Hide and Seek" 46 X 61. T. C. Horsley, R. A. The B^oyal Academy. II in the Harem" depicting a young mother and cb.ild in an Eastern interior, with a Nubian nurse. This work is rich in color and costume, and full of character and vivacity. Mr. Goodall, like Mr. Edwin Long, R. A., has made his greatest success by the painting of single Hip"iir^ >fr^sa u<4ife- No. 619. ''The Flight into Egypt." F. Goodall, R. A. 84 X 144. figures from scriptural subjects, figures many of which are familiar to us in engravings. Both artists are celebrated for the painting of ornaments and draperies glowing in sunlight. Mr. Edwin Long reserves his large works for private exhibition; the figure he has chosen for his principal Academy picture is that of " Thisbe." It is related by Ovid that, during the celebration of the festival of Bacchus, the daughters of Minyas preferred staying at home, rather than take part in what they regarded as impious rites, and, in order that time might pass pleasantly, one of them proposed to tell a story. The first story related was that of Pyramus and Thisbe. Pyramus is described as the most beauteous of youths, and Thisbe as " preferred before all the damsels that the East contained." Living in adjoining houses, they became acquainted, and mutually enamoured of each other, and would have united themselves in marriage, but their fathers forbade it. But they managed, however, to com- municate by nods and signs. Afterward they discovered a crack through the party-wall that divided their two houses, through which they were able to converse, Thisbe on one side and Pyramus on the other. This is the passage in the poem, and the incident that Mr. Edwin Long has chosen for his Royal Academy picture. The artist has borne well in mind the poet's brief description of Thisbe's charms — he tells us that she was " preferred 12 English Art in 1884. No. 358. ' T/iisbe 56 ^ 33- E. Long, R. A. before all other damsels that the East contained" — the modeling of the figure, that of a young woman, not a girl, listening with rapt attention to the accents of her lover as they reach her through the chink in the wall, is indi- cated in the sketch. The attitude is easy, natural, and graceful, and the expression modest yet fervent. This picture has been reproduced in pure line-engrav- ing by Monsieur G. Bertinos. No. 353, "Cruel Necessity'' by W. P. Frith, R.A. The artist here illustrates a story told of the Pro- tector Cromwell, that he visited the Banqueting- House, Whitehall, where the body of that hapless monarch, Charles I, was laid the night succeeding his execution, and, quietly ascending the stairs, he gazed at the king's remains for some time, giving utterance to the sutjo-estive words referred to in the title of the picture. With the political aspect of the question we have really nothing whatever to do ; but there is something singularly solemn in the idea of the great man who, in the plenitude of his power and in cold blood, had upset the government of a powerful nation and brought its ruler to the block, feeling impelled to secretly view the remains of the man whose life he had just taken away. Two Cava- liers, Lord Southampton and another, are said to have witnessed the extraordinary occurrence. History appears to point to the fact that the persistence of the king in a wrong-headed and perverse course had resulted in a state of things where either his life, or that of his sworn opponent, Cromwell, must be sacrificed. In "Dr. Johnsoii and Mrs. Sidctoiis" we have a work by the same well-known artist. The fascinating actress, Mrs. Siddons, was, it appears, in the habit of visiting Dr. Johnson constantly, not long before his death. Our great lexicographer, who was scarcely noted for urbanity, was, however, generally polite to the fair sex, and, although himself so distin- guished a man of letters, he acknowledged with graceful courtesy and gratitude the attention of a lady who was in every way an ornament to histrionic art. These visits, which took place in 1 784, shortly before the doctor's death, in his sixty-fifth year, found him so infirm that he was unable to accompany the fair actress to her carriage, but he was wont to thank her with a high-bred politeness, and in a set formulary of words he never varied. ' An envious wall the Babylonian maid From Pyramus, her gentle lover, stayed. Yet here a" tiny chink none else had seen Sufficed to bear love's messages between. They kissed its stony mouth like lovers true, But neither side would let the kisses through.' Ovid, Met. fV. 55 et seg. The 1(01/ al Academy. 13 Mr. VV. P. Frith, the painter of the ''Derby Day" (so popular in the Royal Academy in 1858, and now in the National Gallery) and other similar works, has given us nothing so interesting for some years as this portrait-picture of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Siddons. of which we give a full-page illustration. 51 X 51. No. 353. "Cruel Necessity." W. P. Frith, R. A. " The night after King Charles I was beheaded, my Lord Southampton and a friend got leave to sit up by the body in the Banqueting-House at Whitehall. As they were sitting there very melancholy at about two o'clock in the morning, they heard the tread of somebody coming slowly up the stairs. By-and-by the door opened and a man entered, very much muffled up in his cloak.' He approached the body, considered it very attentively for some time, and then shook his head and sighed out the words, 'Cruel necessity.' He then departed in the same slow and concealed manner as he had come in. Lord Southampton used to say that he could not distinguish anything of his face, but that by his voice and gait he took him to be Oliver Cromwell." "Faith" by Edward Armitage, R. A., is a scriptural design, showing the Saviour, while walking through the streets with some of his disciples, followed by a crowd of the poor and of those who believed in his sacred mission. Some of these — sick, blind, and in sorry plight — have hope in their hearts that, if Christ only wills it, they may be healed. One poor woman, strong in faith, feels assured her cure is certain, if she can but kiss the hem of the Saviour's garment. And it is recorded in Holy Writ that Christ turned himself about, "feeling that virtue had gone out of him," and the trusting sufferer was made whole. The chief figure in this fine group is instinct with calm, grand dignity — the crowd typifying those who in this world watch, and wait, and suffer. Mr. Armitage was born in London, in 181 7, and was a pupil of Paul Delaroche. H English Art in 1884. This artist, and Mr. J. R. Herbert, R. A., are among the few exponents of sacred art among members of the Royal Academy at the present time. Mr. Herbert, who is the painter of the celebrated picture in the Houses of Parliament of ''Moses ivitli the Tables of the Law" still contributes to the Academy, but his day is past, and his pictures can hardly be regarded seriously by the critic. Mr. Armitage still holds his position, and in choice of his- toric subjects sets a good example to younger men. Mr. Armitage's lectures before the students at the Academy have lately been published, and are well worth reading. 38 X 29. No. 292. ''The Anglers Rest: H. S. Marks, R. A. " The Pet Plant" by H. Stacy Marks, R. A., is one of those attractive studies of monk- ish character which the artist peculiarly affects, and which, it is needless to add, he exe- cutes so well. A good father, whose duty is evidently that of gardener, combined with his more spiritual office, is in the conservatory of the monastery attending to the plants. Pets, it is to be presumed, are scarcely an allowable luxury with priests, but this worthy p o o o o M CO ra o ft H n The ^02/a/ Academy. 15 man has transgressed the law in as permissible a manner as possible when, yielding to temptation, he makes a pet of a flower. Another single-figure study of a monk. No. 45, " The Stopped Key]' by Mr. Marks, represents a priest at the monastery-door with a basket of comestibles at his side which he has just brought from a neighboring village. The old fellow is trying to pick out some- thing from his key, which will not turn in the lock. This picture is very similar in style and composition to " TJie Fct Plant." More important and interesting than either of the former is No. 292, " The Angler's Rest" by the same hand. A piscator, in costume of about a century ago, is seated outside a picturesque-looking country inn, chatting to some traveler. Sportsmen are impracticable creatures for general social purposes, their conversation being, as a rule, limited to their sport. One of the characters Mr. Marks delineates is evidently holding forth with much emphasis upon the delights of some past great day's sport, or of the best method, under certain circumstances, of ensnaring the finny tribe. In the distance, a peep of bright, flat lands, with a winding stream, forms an attractive background. Many accurately studied details are worth noting, such as the timbers of "The Dolphin Inn," the traveler's old-fash- ioned seat by the road-side, the cos- tumes, the cat, the pigeons, and the general qniet of a scene soon to dis- appear from England before railway- hotels. No. 359, " The Vigil" by John Pet- tie, R. A. The artist takes us back to the ages of chivalry in this subject. A young esquire is here represented kneeling upon the stone floor of a chapel, watching his armor, and this he will have to do the whole night through, until the succeeding day sees him entitled to the honor of knight- hood. The cold, gray light of early dawn strikes upon the young man, who wears a white garb and crimson mantle, and he fixes his glance intently upward, as he grasps in both hands his great two-handed sword. The design is curiously suggestive of the religious feeling influencing the knights and cavaliers of the middle ages. The contrast between the still, mystical light of the chapel and the rigid but powerful human form, is very striking ; while there is interest, technically speaking, in the effect of early day- ^5^.^^.-^ I toll 7.1, III I, 46 X 66. No. 359. "77zf Vigil." John Pettie, R. A. (Chant rey Fund.) i6 English Art in 1884.. light as opposed to the mechani- cal light of an expiring lamp hanging between the pillars. This picture has been pur- chased by the Royal Academy out of the funds of the " Chan- trey Bequest." Sir Francis Chan- trey, the well-known English sculptor, who died in 1841 with- out issue, left the residue of his personal estate, amounting to about a hundred thousand pounds sterling, to his wife for life, and on her decease — which took place a few years ago — to the I^oyal Academy of Arts, to be expended in the purchase of pictures painted in England by living artists. No. 410, ''Site of an Early Christian Altar" is also by Mr. Pettie. The scene illus- 51 X 84. No. 410- '''Site of an Early Christian Altar." John Pettie, R. A. "The method adopted in fixing the orientation of churches by a pole placed in the ground ; the sun's rays appearing above the horizon fixed the line of orientation." 47 X 65. No. 258. "The Morning of the Battle of Agincourt." Sir John Gilbert, R. A. The lioT/al Academy. 17 trates the method adopted for fixing the orientation of churches. A large group of priests and others is assembled in the outskirts of a forest among the trees and felled timber, watching earnestly for the first rays of the rising sun, in order to determine the site of an altar. Shading their eyes with their hands, they are just encountering the first brilliant gleams of the god of day. Apart from the dignity of thought in the subject itself, the effect of early sunlight is very skillfully rendered. Sir John Gilbert, R. A., has chosen for the subject of his one Academy picture, " The Mo7-ning of the Battle of Agincourt" and has sketched for us here the three tired horse- men, which occupy nearly the whole of his picture in the large room. On the actual canvas we can see in the distance a line of warriors — the remnant of the English host — sitting, as Shakespeare describes, " like fixed candlesticks with torch-staves in their hands," and " their poor jades bob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips," and " their execu- tors, the knavish crows, fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour." This is a valuable historical work, painted with great realism and verve ; Sir John Gilbert having exceptional knowledge of costume and details of the period. The picture is grand in style, and full of the spirit of the scene, as given in Shakespeare's play of "King Henry V"; in fact, the artist has evidently been much more influenced by the spirit of the play than by Hume or any other historian. Sir John Gilbert is a painter in water-colors as well as in oils, and is president of the principal water-color society of England. Next in order we may refer to some prominent associates of the Royal Academy, artists from whom the full members are elected as vacancies occur. The only exhibited works this year by Mr. G. H. Boughton, A. R. A., are from scenes in North Holland. In Mr. Boughton's studio we see from time to time other subjects, but the English public wiU know this artist best in 1884 by his sturdy field-handmaidens of Brabant, and his views of that strange sea-shore in Holland, where the villagers nestle under sand-hills, protected from wind and wave by an impenetrable wall, which hides even the village church-tower from those who approach it from the sea. It is a wild and windy place at the best of times, inhabited by sturdy peasants who cultivate the flat country and make scanty harvests, both from sea and land ; but it has special attractions for the artist in summer-time for the quaintness of the scene. The soft, atmospheric effects, the costumes and buildings, "lend themselves readily to the artist's pencil. Mr. Boughton has told us of these things in the pages of " Harper's Magazine," and we now know something more of the color and character of North Holland by his exhibited works. Mr. Boughton's own sketch of his single-figure picture, a girl carrying a basket of cabbages, exhibits a stalwart figure worthy to be carved in stone and placed beside Mr. Hamo Thornycroft's statue of " Tlie Mower." There would be singular appropriateness in the juxtaposition of these two 3 * i8 English Art in 1884. figures, emblematic of field-labor (see " Sculpture "). On the technical quality of Mr. Bough- ton's art we need not dwell now ; there is the usual feeling for refinement of colors in the picture of '' 1 he Field Handmaiden ' ; the purple of the cabbages, and the brown and gray 50 X 27. No. 80. "^ Field Handmaiden, Brabant." G. H. Boughton, A. R. A. of the distant village, form a pleasant harmony with the fair hair and work-a-day attire of the girl. But some day, not far distant, we hope to see Mr. Boughton in a new field of labor altogether. Mr. P. R. Morris, A. R. A., has the art of attracting us by his treatment of the simplest incidents. A little child, waiting ready dressed for a drive in the park (the artist's own The B^oyal Academy. 19 child, by-thc-way), was put on canvas with so much style and attractiveness that the editor of the London " Graphic " newspaper decided to reproduce it as a colored illustration in the Christmas number of that paper. The popularity thus attained by the painter, through the medium of the printing-press, is enormous, no less than six hundred and fifty thousand copies having been printed and distributed over the English-speaking world. Mr. P. R. Morris's picture may not be high art, but it is innocently attractive, and there is an air of refinement which has proved delightful to the inmates of many homes. But, as a critic justly remarks, Mr. Morris is not at his best in painting pictures of "overdressed babies, whose No. 458. "^ Village below the Sand-Duncs" {" Un Village pris des Dunes"). G. H. Boughton, A. R. A. raiment is from Bond Street, and the texture of whose countenances is that of the costHest dolls in the Burlington Arcade." There is better and healthier work in his large picture of ''Sweethearts and Wives" which we show in outline on page 20. There is a little of the tendency to overcolor his pictures evident in this, but the old West-Indiaman, with her white-painted, yellow-stained, and weather-beaten timbers, coming into port under a summer sun, forming a background to the gay dresses of the girls on the quay, forms altogether so bright and pleasant a scene that we mav thank the painter, rather than blame him, for put- ting so much light, air, and gayety of color into a common scene at an English seaport. 20 English Art in 1884. 53* X 35+- No. 177. ''Quite ready." P. R. Morris, A. R. A. Mr. Morris is a painter of mucli vivacity and origi- nalit}^ and everything he touches has a marked per- sonahty. Few painters are more rapid, or have greater facihty with the brush. Of the many delicate and refined painters of genre in England (men whose work is not much seen in public exhibitions, because they paint for private com- missions), Mr. Marcus Stone, A. R. A., is one of the most attractive. His pictures are generally painted on a small scale, and elaborated with the utmost care and fastidiousness. No better example of Mr. Marcus Stone's style could have been selected than the two pictures, ''Fallen out'' and "Reconciled]' which he has sketched for this work. The harmonious color and careful touch of the brush must be left to the imagi- nation. All Mr. Stone's work is thorough, and the V , story of the picture is generally suggested rather than explained. The artist is the son of Frank Stone, R. A., the painter of " The Last Appeal" and other subjects which charmed the last genera- tion of Academy visitors. It is said that Mr. Ruskin, standing one day in front of a very popular picture by Frank Stone, turned to the artist, who happened to be present, and said, " Thank you, Frank" These words subsequently formed the criticism of the picture in Mr. Ruskin's printed notes of the Academy Exhibition. Mr. Marcus Stone, an artist from childhood and by tradition de famille, so to speak, will probably soon be in the ranks of the Royal Academy, of which he is now an associate. No. 798, "Daniel in the Lions Den]' by Robert Thorburn, A.R.A. Mr. Thorburn, in whose art may still be traced the influence of his early training as a miniature-painter, treats this subject in a somewhat original manner. The prophet, an asred, bearded man, clad in a man- tie, stands in the midst of the terri- ^'/ ^JliP^ :;dl|fc^\m^ 48 X 78. No. 403. "Sweethearts and Wives." P. R. Morris, A.R.A, The B,oyal Academy. 21 ble beasts, among whom he has been cast by order of the kirig. Before him is a radiant female form — the angelic being sent by the Almighty to protect his servant. The motive of this design is, in reality, the figure of the angel, that of Daniel being comparatively of i3.i^ I \ ■'■, J / til 60 X 27. No. 448. ''Fallen out." No, 449. 60 X 27. ' Reco7iciled." Marcus Stone, A. R. A, " We fell out, my wife and I, Oh, we fell out, I know not why, And kissed again with tears." secondary importance in the background. It was otherwise in the very remarkable picture of this subject, painted by Mr. Briton Riviere, R. A., some few years ago, and with which we are all so familiar from the engravings, wherein the whole interest of the design is made to center with surprising power in the solitary figure, with back turned to the spectator, of the grand old prophet. No. 35, " The Shy Lover]' by G. A. Storey, A. R. A., is a work instinct with the quiet humor with which the artist evidently desired to invest the design. A young couple, lady and gentleman, seated on a garden-bench, are apparently afflicted with that bar to all human progress — a distressing degree of bashfulness. The lady is seated at one end of the bench, a 22 English Art in 1884. book upon her lap, and with eyes modestly cast down and face turned away, while she somehow advances one hand in the direction of some flowers which her admirer has ven- tured to push toward her upon the \ ,- \ '■■ \7 34 X 48. No. 798. "Daniel in the Lions Den.'' Robert Thorburn, A. R. A. " Then Daniel said unto tlie king, ' My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths.' " seat. He, at the other end of the bench, and holding his cap up so as to partially screen his face, looks the prey of a viaitvaise honte which we much question if his companion altogether approves. If the poor fellow would but take heart of grace and remember that " faint heart never won fair lady," he might possibly have a better pros- pect of succeeding in his suit. The Old World picturesqueness which attracted Samuel Prout and the English painters of the beginning of the century, still attracts and repays the artist. The local costumes not quite extinct, the old towers and churches, the high-pitched I'oofs and gables covered with carved wood-work, send many artists to Rouen and other parts of Normandy. Mr. W. J. Hennessy, living much near Honifeur, at the mouth of the Seine (whose work was in the Grosvenor Gallery), and his friend Mark Fisher, still send us pictures of Normandy orchards and bits of pastoral life. (See sketches in Grosvenor Gallery.) Mr. Eyre Crowe, in the sketches before us, depicts more of the life and activity of the town. Rouen is a great commercial cen- ter in the north of France, and, like Birming- ham in England, a "fish-center" for distribu- tion over the country. The scene in the fish-market is seldom visited by artists, but it is worth finding out. The old court-yard of the school at the Aitre, St. Maclou, is well known, and permission can easily be obtained to sketch the wood-carving and architecture of the fifteenth century, which still exists in the cloisters and precincts of the famous church No. 35. "Tlie Sliy Lover." G. A. Storey, A. R. A. 26 X 36. The T(oyal Academy. 23 26 X 36. No. 1627. '' Fish- Market at Rouen" Eyre Crowe, A. R. A. of St. Maclou, at Rouen. Mr. Eyre Crowe has grouped the scholars with singular dexterity in the sketch before us, and has given an interest to the scene which many an artist would have missed. It is worth while for the reader to look along the line of the young people in this illustration ; there is nothing more life-like in the book. No. 169. ''School at the Aitre, St. Maclou, Rouen:' Eyre Crowe, A. R. A. 43 X 23. 24 English Art in 1884. No. 552, "TIic Scramble at the Wedding" by J. B. Burgess, A. R. A., is a subject illus- trating domestic life in Spain. The wedding-party is leaving the church after the ceremony, and the happy bridegroom, with his lovely wife leaning trustfully upon his arm, is acknowl- edging the congratulations and good wishes of many friends. The dark-eyed bride, who is glancing downward, is the cynosure of all eyes, and, in her pink dress and the ever-becom- ing mantilla, is a splendid realization of Spanish beauty. In the group of girls upon her left, one at least looks as if she thought that she herself at one time might have had some hope of occupying the young wife's happy position. Upon the left a cavalier on horse- back liberally showers small coins among the urchins and others assembled. One little lass offers a bouquet to the bride, and in the foreground gamins scramble furiously for the \ .: -A' r?--!/ \,- liim«*ti'.''/M, / ,i0ii»"' ■"'■"'//„ W \\\lyp / /(, \ . A ifl/\ U 7i»' ftilOL-. t^f^* 47J X 7i|. No. 552. "IV/e Scramble at the Wedding." J. B. Burgess, A. R. A. coins so liberally bestowed, and there is a pretty touch of sentiment in the incident of the little beggar-girl with her tambourine on the right, eagerly followed by the hesitating steps of her poor, old, blind grandfather. Mr. Burgess, who executed the picture, is now the most able exponent of Spanish domestic genre subjects in England. Educated in the schools of the English Royal Academy, where he was a student in 1848, and a silver medalist, he was early impressed with a great admiration of the works of the late John Phillip, R. A., whose manner of art he has adopted — without, however, the least degree of servile imitation. Mr. Burgess has spent a considerable time in Spain, where he has accu- mulated a vast number of sketches done upon the spot as material for future pictures. Unlike Mr. Edwin Long, R. A., and other followers of the school of John Phillip, who have forsaken Spanish subjects for other branches of art, Mr. Burgess has found in Spain, its If- 3R£j^TB,- THE IRABBIT QW TKJE ITAJLTL ROM THE PICrUB.E IN THE POSSKSSjOxM OF SIR W. G, ARMSTHOFCr. The B^oyal Academy. 25 customs, people, and climate, a motive for art-work of which he has never been weary, and from his first more important picture ''Bravo l^oro" to the present time, he has followed with unfailing fidelity the delineation of Spanish life and character. The artist exhibits two other pictures at the Academy in portraits of E. A. Goodall, Esq., and the Honorable Mrs. H. A. Laurence, but, clever though they undoubtedly are, we have no desire to see the artist abandon for portraiture what is beyond all question his real roic in art. Mr. Luke Fildes, A. R. A., has sketched the central figure of his chief contribution to the Academy entitled " Venetian Life" No. 390. This artist is one whose genius will not •^^3 No. 390. "Venetian Life." Luke Fildes, A. R. A. be denied. It was but a few years ago that he startled the world of art with his picture of ''Casuals" — a work so powerful, instructive, and impressive that, had he but followed on with other productions of like quality, his future fame was assured. In succeeding years we had from his brush " The JVidoiocr" and other subjects, strong in individuality, but with a uniform character of melancholy in motive than was hardly to be desired. Determined to free himself from the reputation of being painter of dismal subjects only, the young artist has this year struck out a totally new line for himself and that, it is only fair to add, with complete success. Mr. Fildes has been to Venice, where his brother-in-law, Henry Woods, 4 26 English Art in 1884. A. R. A., resides, and, in that city of marble palaces and generally bright influences, the inspiration he desired came to him. He painted on the spot a large picture illustrating every-day " Venetian life." In the Piazza del Marco, or in the grand places of that peerless city, one does not see the real life of Venice, but let the visitor, in the evening, traverse some of the by-ways, and he will notice groups of work-girls and others, who, seated at the entrances of the palaces, in which even the poorest now lodge, ply needle and thread, have their long dark hair combed out, and meantime make the air vocal with songs and chatter. Dressed in costumes the lightest and sometimes the most brilliant in color, and with busy fingers and not less active tongues, very often these characteristic groups pass the best part of the night thus engaged, under the lovely blue sky of the famous southern city. A won- derfully pretty girl, with rich, reddish-colored hair, is seated, holding a ball of thread and some muslin on her lap. She is dressed in light blue, and her costume, like that of her compan- ions, is bright and pretty in the extreme. Mr. Fildes is to be congratulated upon changing No. 1546. "■ Pressing to the West." Hubert Herkomer, A. R. A. his class of subject in his pictures. We admit the strength, expression, and value of his former designs, but there was always the fear that he might have fallen away, as an illus- trater of only one class of subjects, and that a morbid one. Another picture by this artist The B^oyal Academy. 27 is a Venetian flower-girl, a figure nearly life-size, with blue-black, curly hair, in bright-green shawl and gay dress, standing near a blaze of flowers. Thus, the Venice of to-day, described so well by Mr. W. D. Howells, and painted with such subtilty and grace by Van Haanen, is depicted without much reticence of color, but with unmistakable power. No. 810. "77/6* Saturday Dole in Worcester Chapter-House." Val Princep, A. R. A. Mr. Hubert Herkomer, A.R. A., sends to the Academy the picture of "Pressing to the f-Vest," the studies for which he made when visiting America last year. This artist, who thirty-three years ago himself landed at New York city from Bav^aria, and was taken by his parents to Cleveland, Ohio, was much struck by the picturesque aspect of the scene in Castle Garden, in the dreary building set apart for immigrants at the present time. Here was material exactly suited to a painter of Mr. Herkomer's temperament, imagination, and energy. The accompanying sketch will indicate, to those who did not see the unfinished original in New York, how the painter has worked out his idea, bringing together the vari- ous nationalities, and grouping them in' one powerful, pathetic picture. It is a drama of many acts brought before us in one scene. It may be interesting to note how a picture, which created much interest in New York during its progress, was received in England by the press. " We have little doubt," says the 28 English Art in 1884., " Pall Mall Gazette," " that this gloomy and singular composition will be the most popular picture of the year." The London "Observer" says, "The execution seems purposely rough, and the color brown and unpleasant, but it is painted with prodigious vigor " ; and the 66 X 46. No. 430. ''Romeo and Juliet." Frank Dicksee. " Daily News " speaks of it as " a composition which has no mission of beauty, and is instructive rather than agreeable." As an artistic effort this ■ picture will scarcely add to the reputation of the painter of " The Last Muster" The skill is undeniable, and few painters could bring together such a variety of character with more force and individuality — the easy-going Irish, the Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Italians, and others — but the handling is decidedly rough, and the picture The I^OT/al Academy. 29 seems to want relief — if not a touch of actual comedy, at least that grim relief that Hogarth would have given to such a scene. No. 810, "The Saturday Dole in Worcester Chaptcr-Hoiise : A Relic of the Olden Time]' by Val Princep, A. R. A. This is the interesting record of a charitable bequest to the poor of the city of Worcester. A large quantity of bread is distributed under the superintendence of the clergy in the chapter- house, and the gathering of old and young upon these occasions of those, not unfrequently, who, but for this most seasonable charity, would be in dire want, is a sight calculated to arouse feelings both of benevolence and gratitude.* The painter of "Romeo a^id Jtiliet]' Mr. Frank Dicksee, whose illustrations to Longfel- low's "Evangeline" are well known, made a great success in the Academy in 1877 by a picture called "Harmony" a girl seated at an organ and a young man listening. It was an ambitious work for a young artist, but it was excellently placed in the center of a wall in the first gallery, purchased by the Academy, and afterward engraved. Since that time Mr. Dicksee has exhibited annually important pictures, and in 1881 was made an Associate of the Academy. There is very beautiful painting in his parting of "Romeo and Juliet" with 48 X 108. No. 805. "A Fen Farm" Robert W. Macbeth, A. R. A. " Cusha ! cusha ! cusha ! calling, For the dews will soon be falling." the light of morning breaking in the distance and just tingeing the laurel-leaves as the lovers part. It is a powerful picture, much finer, we imagine, than the majority of visitors to the Academy discovered, as it hung in a corner of a gallery. However, an engraving is * In the absence of a sketch of this picture by the artist, we have inserted a photographic reproduction by the Lefm- man process. It will ser\-e to indicate the composition. 30 English Art in 1884. in progress which will give the details of costume and texture as they have never yet been seen. There is no doubt that the painting of details and the effect of break of day are the artist's strong points in this work. But the painter of "Evangeline," in 1879, ^^'th the emigrants on the shore, "when the sun went down," has a reserve of power of which we shall hear more in future exhibitions. No. 805, ''A Feu Farm" by Robert Walker Macbeth, A. R. A., is one of the Cam- bridgeshire or Lincolnshire scenes in which the artist delights. In a farm in the low, marshy land of the fen districts, a buxom, golden-haired country lassie stands at the farm- No. 881. "After Culloden : Rebel-Hunting." Seymour Lucas. 56 >• 77- gate she is holding open, while she lustily calls into their night's resting-place her charge of young cattle. The cows and calves obey the familiar invitation, but watch warily the dog standing close to his mistress's side. The sky is rendered luminous by the setting sun, which also brightens, with its departing radiance, the living objects in the scene. Mr. Mac- beth, who is a Scotch artist, was born in Glasgow in 1848, and may be considered fortu- nate in being elected an Associate of the Academy while still so young. He has not fol- lowed the line of art of his father, Norman Macbeth, the well-known portrait-painter, but there can be little doubt that the early artistic associations and training which fell to his lot have been of no little value in securing his hitherto remarkably successful career. The I(oyal Academy. 31 No. 881, ''After Ctillodcn : Rcbcl-Himtingl'' by Seymour Lucas, is another of the pict- ures purchased by the Royal Academy from the Chantrey Bequest Fund. In a Scotch smithy in the Highlands, after the Duke of Cumberland had, in 1746, defeated Prince Charles, the last of the Stuarts, at CuUoden, some English soldiers are busy on the trail of rebel Scots. The smiths — fine, brawny fellows — are busy at their trade when the duke's soldiers, sword in hand, enter. Whether these good fellows — or any of them — were concerned in the recent fierce fight, which cost them between two and three thousand men slain upon the field, we will not undertake to say, but certainly more than one of their number present an appearance of determination and strength that would augur no good thing for those who are to make them prisoners and lead them off to punishment. The picture is a remarkable example of the steadily increasing powers of the young artist, Mr. Seymour Lucas. There is a little conventionality apparent in the arrangement, but the painting is thorough and the color good ; and the general verdict in London is that it is " the most satisfactory purchase of the year out of the funds of the Chantrey Bequest." No. 559, ''Consjilting the Oracle]' by J. VV. Waterhouse. Last year this artist exhibited at the Academv a picture of the Emperor Honorius — a scene in Italian court-life in the fifth or sixth century. This picture excited attention as a work of considerable promise, but it scarcely led the way to so fine a production technically as the one we have now to 48 X 78. No. 559. ''Consulting the Oracle." J. W. Waterhouse. remark upon. The subject Mr. Waterhouse has selected is singular, as it relates to a prac- tice among the Eastern nations in ancient times, when they slaughtered a man, cut off his head, and put it in spices and oil. They then wrote the name of an evil spirit on a golden plate, placed it under the tongue, and, the head being fastened to the wall and lamps lighted, English Art in 1884. they knelt down in adoration, when it was said the tongue began to utter divinations. Such was the singular idea of this particular oracle, the diviners becoming so excited that they imagined they heard a voice whispering future events. The artist's design shows to us the interior of a temple with marble floor, and upon the left is affixed to the wall the ghastly human head, in front of which the diviner is listening to the imaginary words of terrible import, and repeating them to a group of women, seated around in a semicircle. _a nil ^ 34 X 26. No. 14. " The Very Image." Joseph Clark. The character in the listeners is remarkable. Some are bowed down with anguish at the message just conveyed to them ; others are hopeful ; and others, again, are listening in rapt attention. The costumes are varied and beautiful, the expressions of the faces also being well expressed. The semi-obscurity of the building, lighted by oil-lamps burning before the face of the dead, the natural excitement of the diviner, and the semicircle of listeners in the spring-time of life, form altogether a remarkable picture — remarkable especially for good color and quality. The 1^07/ a/ A cade mi/. 33 48 X 36. No. 15. "Idle Moments." C. E. Perugini. " The Very Image " is by Mr. Joseph Clark. The group here consists of a young artist standing, palette and brushes in hand, in some humble country cottage. He has just finished his picture standing upon the easel, which an old granddame is expressing high approval of, while her good man indorses her opinion, and their little chubby grandson sits upon the floor doing all the mischief, time will admit of, with the artist's camp-stool. The picture on the easel may be the interior of the cottage itself, with the admiring old couple introduced, and perhaps the child ; but, at any rate, the picture is admired, and the painter has the satisfaction of having an approving critic. The contrast of stalwart manhood with trembhng old age, and the charm of childhood, will also not be overlooked by the observant. For many years (without any special recognition from the Academy) has Mr. Joseph Clark had similar subjects on the walls, interiors painted with the precision and certainty of the old Dutch masters ; and, like them, making every detail of household life an interesting part of the composition. A refined and graceful picture, gray in tone, lighted by a touch of blue in the peacock's plume, is Mr. Perugini's "/d/e Moments!' The action of drawing the feathers through the hand gives the motive of the composition. This artist's method of painting is highly finished and careful, resem- bling in its style that of Sir Frederick Leighton. Mr. Perugini married Kate, daughter of the late Charles Dick- ens. This lady's portraits of children are very successful, and are generally seen in our exhibition. A young member of the talented family of the Mont- albas is represented (No. 880) in a Venetian girl going to a well ; her sister Ellen is a most skillful portrait-painter, and exhibited two portraits of ladies this year. Examples of the work of Clara and H. S. Montalba will be found in this volume. Among the younger painters whose work is of great interest and promise we should mention Mr. Herbert Schmalz. No picture this year excited more interest during its progress than " Too late]' a large and carefully thought- 50 X 33. No. 880. "A Venetian Girl going to the Welir Hilda Montalba. 34- English Art in 1884. out picture, exhibiting great power on the part of the painter. The solemn grouping of the figures round the body of the bride, the management of color in the morning light, and the painting of the interior and accessories of the palace of a Norse chieftain on a very large canvas, went far to make a great success. But the figure of the returning warrior, who arrives to find his young wife dead, is less successful than the rest of the picture. Mr. Schmalz had another picture in the Giosvenor Gallery. No. 827. '^ Too late I" Herberi Schmalz. Mr. J. D. Linton, whose fine picture of ''The Declaraticm of War" attracted so much attention, is perhaps best known by his work in water-colors. It will be interesting, how- ever, to give a sketch of his principal works in oils, communicated by the artist, which appeared in a London newspaper : " The President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colors has made a reputa- tion as an oil-painter principally by a single series of pictures. This is the only way in which we can account for the fact that one of the first craftsmen of the age remains out- side the ranks of the Royal Academy. That body considers painting in oils as alone worthy of its attention, and, until 1880, Mr. Linton was simply one of the best of living water-color painters. But in 1879 he had the happy inspiration of furnishing a great rcom with five large oil-pictures, representing the life of a soldier in the sixteenth century. It will not be the least notable fact about the Royal Academy of 1884 that it will contain the best installment of this extremely interesting series. The five pictures have not been exhibited in their proper order. This is their true distribution : ' The Declarat{o7i of War, Royal Academy, 18S4; 'TIic Benediction] Royal Academy, 1881; 'The Surrenderl Royal Academy, 1S83; 'Victoriousl Grosvenor Gallery, 1880; 'The Banquet] Royal Academv, m Q O The B^oyal Academy. 35 1882. The legend running through them may be thus rapidly defined: A young soldier is in the service of a German prince who declares war against the Turk ; he is solemnly blessed and knighted in the cathedral ; he attacks the principal fortress of the Turk and storms it ; he returns to his prince covered with glory ; and is honored with a public banquet of congratulation. It may be a matter of some interest to mention that throughout the series many of the heads are portraits. The young prince is Mr. E. J. Gregory, A. R. A. ; his minister of state is Mr. Brewtnall, the distinguished water-color painter, and the faces of several other kindred artists may be detected by the curious. " The picture of this year, ' The Declaration of War] though the last painted, is the first of the series. We stand in the interior of a Byzantine palace, which, presumably, from the order of its architecture and the nature of its ornaments, stands not far from the Adri- atic — in Istria, perhaps, or Dalmatia — although the arms which we see embroidered in gold and black on the blue arras are the arms of Bohemia. At the top of a low flight of mar- ble steps, the young prince of the state, Herzog or Landesherr, owning no suzerain but the Kaiser, stands in a splendid attitude of wrath, rending the parchment treaty which the two stolid embassadors from the Grand Turk, who stand below him on the left-hand side, have brought. The embassadors bow with a dignified resignation, but evidently all the Germans sympathize with their prince. Behind him, from one door, the Church gives him her sup- p'ort in a stream of priests and acolytes, headed by a blonde Teutonic bishop. On the other side the slender young soldier, a mere stripling in armor, who is to be the hero of the series, is presented as general of the coming war by the minister of state, who advances in a long robe of vair. At the left-hand corner of the picture the lawyers form a picturesque group over their codes and Latin formulas. The color of the whole picture is sumptuous. The simple green and red of the flowing robes of the embassadors contrast with the elabo- rate richness of the prince's dress. By the Turks, on a carved marble seat of florid Re- naissance work, stand the useless gifts v/hich they have brought with them from their Orient. " Mr. Linton thinks it yet possible that he may be tempted to add an appendix to the series. He would like to represent his soldier in old age, still wearing the costume of his glorious youth, and serving a new young Herzog, whose ways are not his, and whose fashions are half a century later." Mr. Linton has also exhibited several small and very powerful pictures in oils, princi- pally in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879. In the year 1876 a poetical picture, by Mr. Frederick Morgan, attracted much attention in the Royal Academy. It was a large work, representing hay-makers returning from work in the glow of a summer's evening. Since that time this artist has been a regular contribu- 36 English Art in 1884. tor to the exhibitions, but he has seldom painted with more success than in 1884. We have noticed elsewhere his picture of children, but the present sketch (No. 147, "Besieged''^ indicates his principal work. It is accurate in the lines of the composition (for it is by the artist's own hand), but gives little idea of the skillful management of sunlight on the features of the woman and child, or of the delicate balance of color throughout. This picture, happy in idea, natural in action, presents us with a scene of rustic life in summer on the southern side of the Alps. 35 X 45- 147. " Besiegcii." F"rederick Morgan. "La Cocardc Tricolorc'' is by G. P. Jacomb-Hood. It represents a young mother standing at a window in Paris, rocking her child's cradle with one foot while she sews the fatal tricolor cockade her husband is to wear in that awful period of French history to which the picture refers. The incident recalls memories never to be forgotten in the history not only of " la belle Franee " but of Europe. A great nation roused to wrath by a long system of cruelty and oppression that was unendurable ; the consequent destruction of king, queen, and nobles, who, either willingly or by force of circumstances, had become oppressors and brought to one of the fairest and most beautiful of cities a " Reign of Terror," a very carnival of blood. Over that time we may willingly draw a veil, when the fierce passions The ^oyal Academy. 2,7 60 X 42. No. 1622. " 77te Marsh-King's Daugh- ter." John Scott. of man were in all their fury. But the French Revo- lution is ever a favorite subject with the painter. Here is the young wife of a Paris ouvrier busily plying needle and thread, constructing the distinctive badge which by-and-by is to be worn by her husband at that terrible festival of the guillotine. Will she also be one of the many of her sex who used to sit, as at a theatre, calmly working while the bloody massacres were going on? At present she looks thoughtful and as if half alarmed at the tumult in the streets below, and we care not to think how she may soon be an approving participator in the scenes of blood taking place around. This picture is one of the successes of the year by a young exhibitor. ' No. 693, ''Disinherited]' by Laslett J. Pott. The scene here depicted reminds us of Hogarth's ''Rakes Progress'.' It is the oft-told story of the lavish thought- lessness and waste of youth. A young man, after doubt- less countless follies, and as constant forgiveness, has at length aroused his father's wrath, has met with the reward of his misdeeds, and is seen , descending the stairs of the mansion a beggar. There is no mistake about it, for the scene tells its own story most powerfully. The young man has been a spend- thrift, squanderer, and at last comes the day of reckon- ing when the outraged parent, who has heard the oft- repeated tale of his son's offenses, until the time of forgiveness is gone, stands indignantly at the head of the stairs ordering the offender to depart from his house. But there is still a pleading voice to be heard in favor of young scapegrace, and, come what may, a mother's love is not to be exhausted. And thus we see the mother striving to allay the storm of just in- dignation ; but all is useless, and with bowed head and humbled mien the heir of the house quits his father's house, while the servants, as their young master passes from his home forever, by their respectful obeisance 68 X 48. No. 693. "Disinherited." L. J. Pott. 38 English Art in 1884. suggest that possibly the young sinner was, after all, not wholly unpopular, and may have been his own greatest enemy. The artist, Mr. L. J. Pott, has more than once, in exhibited works of very considerable power, made fair bid for the honor of associateship, which, if he is but true to himself in the way in which he is now working, may hardly be much longer denied to him. No. 374, ''The Peacc-Maka-" by G. B. O'Neill (sketched on page 46), a group in which a little girl is attempting to re-establish the entente cordiale between two school-boys who have fallen out, is an interesting and satisfactory little study of the class to which we have been now referring. No. 662, '' Saved from the Snoiv'' by Arthur Stocks. A group consisting of a shepherd and his family gathered round a small lamb which the man holds upon his knees. The No. 662. '' Saved from the Siiou weather has been hard, and perhaps, far away from its mother, in some wild mountain- pass, the poor little lamb has been overcome in a snow storm, and would have perished but that the shepherd's footstep strayed that way and he saved the wanderer. And now, safely The B^oyal Academy. 39 housed in the good man's cottage, with warmth, food, and kindly treatment, the pretty animal will be restored. Rather a quaint feature of the design is the shepherd's dog — certainly an animal not naturally fond of sheep, but who is now seated, looking on at what is going forward, almost with instinctive knowledge that, with good luck and nursing, the time may come when he will have the pleasure of harrying and driving this little nursling with the rest of the flock. There is great pictorial interest in Mr. Stocks's pictures, which are looked for annually as popular points in the exhibition. We believe " Saved from the Snow " will shortly appear as an engraving. 54 X 77. No. 516. "77/^ French in Cairo, A. d, 1800." Walter C. Horslev. Mr. Walter C. Horsley, son of the well-known Royal Academician, J. C. Horsley, has turned to good account his experiences as an artist, or war correspondent, on one of the London illustrated newspapers, and, nearly every year, since 1877 (when he first made a mark with a picture called " The Hour of Prayer',' a scene on a Turkish ironclad), he has contributed some painting descriptive of life in the East and the incidents of modern war- fare. The value of this early training in the sketching and arrangement of groups of figures is conspicuous in this artist's work, which is generally well placed on the line in the Royal Academy. This year he has chosen an historical incident in which he depicts a successful soldier of the Emperor Napoleon cutting in the stone of one of the principal buildings in 40 English Art in 1884. Cairo the names of the great marshals of France. Some of these names still remain, a memorial of the emperor's love of display, and of his merciless disregard of the feelings of those he conquered. In the group Mr. Horsley pictures, the French soldiers contemplate with satisfaction the work of their comrade, who, with chisel and mallet, carves out the famous names, while the citizens look on with feelings of bitterness and indignation at the insult thus put upon them and their noble city. One French soldier, a veteran from many a hard-fought field, is sitting down reading in a newspaper the account of some recent battle, while a young comrade, with musket slung at his back, is also seated, observing, with non- chalant ease and an expression of gratified pride, the public record of his country's prowess. No. 128, "The Union-Jack" by VV. Christian Symons, is one of those strongly designed, bright, and suggestive subjects that is sure to be deservedly popular. Some girls and others are wandering near a flag-staff on the sea-shore, when a Jack-tar amuses himself by wrapping the flag of Old England round a bright-faced, happy-looking lass. And many a time before has the Union-Jack sheltered and protected those in our little island, as Nelson 50 X 40. No. 128. The Union- Jack." W. C. Symons. and many other heroes could have testified. The other lassies and surrounding spectators look on amused at the impromptu garment honest Jack has found for his lass, but little cares he, while his strong, sheltering arm is placed around the fair form, trusting confidingly in him. The 1(02/ a/ A cade mi/. 4T No. 294, "Men were Deceivers ever]' by Peter Macnab. The artist here hints, it is to be surmised, at one of those stories of fond but fleeting love, whieh ever have been since the world began. A young gentleman is speaking his devotion to his sweetheart as he tenderly presses her hand, and at the same time we see in the distance the ship which is 36 X 28. No. 294. "Men tuc/r Deceivers ever." Peter Macnab. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever ; One foot on sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never." to bear him to other shores, and perhaps to other loves. The maiden looks very trustful and equally sad, so that one quite feels for her in her bereavement. Perhaps it is unwise to trust a lover — particularly if he be young and handsome — miles away in a ship, if he must be gone a long time. There is a sad and tender grace about the treatment 6 42 English Art in 1884. No. 828. ''An Iinproiiiptu." H. T. Schafer. of the well-worn theme peculiar to Mr. Macnab's work. The picture will make a good engraving. Next are two representative pictures by H. T. Schilfer, a young and successful painter, a frequent contributor to the Academy. No. 828, ''An Inipromptii" is a pretty idyl; two Greek girls, fair and graceful, listening to a classic shepherd who pipes sweet music while they listen, charmed by the melody. ^o. \\<)," II Dolce far Niente" ixovci the same brush, pictures another fair dame stretched at her ease among clustering flowers, in the distance being what are possibly the blue waters of the Grecian Archipelago. The lady has one arm raised above her head, and looks the very personification of all that is graceful and lovely. Mr. Schafer is sometimes over- bright in color, but his grace of line bears down all criticism ; no one is a harder worker in this branch of art. It is worth while to note here how admirably the artist has indicated the flow of .soft drapery in his sketch (419) before us. Few artists have greater facility of expression in line. ^5=* '■4 ■'■'^^^Ki'^ :#fe-ss__;;3^g<|l|-ct|;;^ .1 ■"" "•.. - 12 X 24. No. 419. "// £>(>/a far Niente." H. T. Schafer.. The I{oyal Academy. 43 No. 425, "The Widoivcr" by William Rainey, is a study of an old cottager, left by for- tune to fight the battle of life alone, when he is of an age ill fitting him for the contest. The poor old fellow is cleaning his cup after partaking of that beverage without which it No. 425. "The Widower." Vi'iLLiAM Rainey. 30 X 24. would almost appear that the poor in England could hardly exist. He looks desperately lonely, and we need not be told of the irremediable loss he has experienced. This picture is by a young artist who made a mark last year by an excellent river-scene entitled " The Horse-Boat, Foweyr The works of Mr. Wetherbee and Mr. Waterlow may be examined together. They are 44- English Art in 1884. 35 X to. No. 4^4- '^ The Harvest is past, the Summer is eiuicd." G. F. Wetherbee. painters of kindred subjects, both in oils and water-colors. Mr. E. A. Waterlow is a young and very successful painter of landscape with figures, showing, like Mr. Wetherbee, much No. 916. " Saiid-Diggiiig, North Cornwall." Ernest A. Waterlow. 60 X 35. The B^oyal Academy. 45 of the feeling of the late Frederick Walker in pastoral subjects. But Mr. VVaterlovv is no imitator of other men's styles ; he is working out steadily a line of his own, with a good eye for color and grace in composition. This year his picture of " Saiid-Digging in North Cornwair reminds us in its treatment more of Mr. J. C. Hook, R. A. 02 X 92 No. 809. "La Belle Dame sans Mcrci." Anna Lea Merritt. " She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild, wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dreamed — ah ! woe betide The latest dream I ever dreamed On the cold hill's side," Mrs. Merritt's large canvas, ''La Belle Dame sans Merel" occupies a very prominent position in the center of the wall in Gallery VII. The picture is full of grace; there is fine drawing of the figure, as usual. The accessories have been painted with great care; the elfin grot, the trees, and undergrowth, from nature-studies, giving great interest to the com- position. The subject of this picture is suggested by Keats's poem of "Za Belle Dainc sans Meret" ; the moment chosen is when the knight is being lulled to sleep. 46 English Art in 1884. "I'T I, 1 H B7 J 'if £^ I Ho J a I 1-,,, ^ 1 JL j^ :a*%^- 25 X 30. No. 374. " r/zf Peace-Maker." G. B. O'Neill. ■|r\\--=^' I ■:■! \i MS I S'MI C; ^u^-^vc ^,^5:^1 /sJr^ I"- «- 40 X 60. No. 176. " 0/d Friends." Carl Schloesser. "^ Load of Turf" A. O'Kelly. ,Uirw,,x(iSl^ 42 X 72. No. 451. "Fn'iicc Rupert." Stanley Berkley. b; — - 31 X 4t)- No. 8l5- " Her oiLin Gleanings." H.R.Robertson. The lioyal Academy. 4-7 No. 674, "Called to Court" by Haynes Williams. "She thought of nothing but the bright life before her, and in her youth and innocence dreamed only of love and truth and pleasure ; but he, her father, sighed and wished that France's queen had left his child to him and home." Mr. Williams, whose direct role in art one has been accustomed to regard as more akin to that of his old friend and comrade, Mr. J. B. Burgess, A. R. A., in the present work forsakes Spanish subjects, in which, on former occasions, he has shown that he delights and has great facility, and favors us with an example of his skill in historical genre. The scene is laid in the time of Louis XIII, whose queen was in the habit of selecting her maids of honor on account both of their beauty and high birth. In the present instance the choice has fallen upon a very lovely girl, who, sumptuously attired in white y)\<, /"i '-, '"- ; ^-^ I tef 36 X 60. No. 674. " Called to Court." Haynes Williams. satin, is being conducted by the old nobleman, her father, to the presence-chamber of the queen. She, in the joyousness of her young life, thinks only of the honor conferred upon her, and of coming pleasures ; but her father, with greater knowledge of court-life, has other and graver thoughts. Meantime, the fair young beauty leans lightly upon her father's arm, and is more intent upon the attendant arranging her train than aught more important. Two pages, in blue-satin jackets, make obeisance as they hold open the folding-doors which lead to the immediate presence of royalty. To turn to something designed and executed in a more comic vein. No. 671, "Not zaorth Powder and Shot" by J. C. Dollman, is certainly humorous. A mounted highway- man, armed, masked, and doubtless keenly anxious for his prey, has spied a traveler in the distance, and, setting spurs to his horse, he after a long and sharp gallop has succeeded in coming up with the individual. But, pulling up, for his horse is blown, he finds that this 48 English Art in 1884, 26 X 40. No. 671. ''Not worth Poivder and Shot." J. C. Dollman. time, at any rate, he is thoroughly mistaken, for what he doubtless hoped was a wealthy traveler proved to be but a starveling, old, itinerant musician — one whose poverty is such that, feeling secure in his total lack of this world's goods, he does not even take the trouble to turn upon his heel to see who his pursuer may be, but trudges along, supremely inde- pendent in that he has nothing to lose. The subject is no caricature, no exaggeration of very unlikely possibilities, but the incident is a simple transcript of what might very well take place, while it is, of course, a humorous phase of human nature. 41 X 32 No. 69. "Fact and Fiction." G. W. C. Hutchinson. The B^oyal Academy. 49 70 X 50. No. 485. "For Sale." Arthur Hacker. No. 661, ''The Unconverted Cavalier" by Charles C. Seton, is another work in which the motive is distinctly jocular. One of King Charles's worldling and unregener- ate Cavaliers, richly attired and lounging at his ease in a chair, smoking, is listening to a Puritan who, with eager zeal, is expounding the word to him. But the good seed is evidently sown on barren soil, for the reprobate listens, too lazy even to answer, too careless to attempt to refute the words of the worthy Roundhead. To refer to yet one other study of the class we are alluding to. No. 69, ''Fact and Fiction" by George W. C. Hutchinson, is a quaintly characteristic figure of a little girl kneeling at a stove toasting some bread, while eyes and mind are engaged with a story-book spread open at her feet. The milk boils over on the stove, and the steam from the kettle threatens a similar mishap, the toast burns furiously, but the little one's mind is in the region of fancy, and all things sublunary are lost to her. This charming little study, which exhibits the grace of childhood, is not with- out thoughtful sense of humor in its suggestiveness. No. 485, "For Sate" by Arthur Hacker, exhibits an Arab salesman with a matchlock and various other wares which he is offering for sale. At his side runs a little black lad, and in the foreground are fruits and other objects upon a stall. No. 439, "Home, Sweet Home" by William E. F. Britten. Two country children, a boy and girl, are finding their way home through the heavy winter snows, and, as they approach, hail those who are welcoming them at the cottage-door. No. 465, " The Gladiators Wife" by E. Blair Leighton. This picture, notwithstanding the scant courtesy with which it was treated by the hangers, was one of the most interesting and remarkable in the exhibition. It recalls to mind imperial Rome when, in the splendor of her power, she inaugurated those deadly sports with wild beasts, and combats, which de- lio;hted the citizens with scenes of blood. Founded in cruelty 39 X 24. No. 439. "Howe, Sweet Home." — ^r it was built by Vespasian with the enforced labor of the W. E. F. Britten. miserable, conquered Jews — the Coliseum during the reigns of 50 English Art in 1884. 62 X 38. No. 465. " The Gladiator s Wife.' E. Blair Leighton. several succeeding emperors was the scene where the people congregated to witness the gladiatorial encounters — fights with wild beasts — and upon one occasion, at least, the whole- sale destruction of the then despised sect of Christians, that served to make holiday for a warlike but semi-barbarous nation. But while demoralized by the cultivation of their more cruel instincts, and degraded by their constant trade of war, it may not be doubted that they were still susceptible to the feelings of natural affection which make " the whole world kin." It is true that even women used upon occasions to figure in their gladiatorial shows as combatants, but it is probable that such instances were comparatively isolated and unusual. Mr. Blair Leighton, in his singularly dramatic and powerful picture, depicts what would be a very probable in- cident, the young wife of a gladiator awaiting the result of a combat in which her husband is engaged. The splendid and terrible scene is sufficiently indicated — the immense amphi- theatre crowded with spectators ; the emperor in all his semi-barbaric pomp ; the vestal virgins, senators, patricians, and citizens of all classes, watching with eager interest the inci- dents of the bloody fray. But here, unable to turn her face toward the awful sight — to the scene which may rob her, in a moment, of one dear to her as Hfe — a young wife stands listening to the shouts and cries which greet her eai'. In nervous dread she clutches at her necklace. What cares she for emperor and court, for the splendor of the scene, or for victory, if but the one life she holds so dear be spared.? And meantime the brill- iant light of the sun, scarce checked by the awning, is shed upon the scene as if in mockery at human happiness or woes. The artist's pathetic little story is told with wondrous power and effect. Another work by the same hand, No. 1552, " Conquest!' pictures an armed knight returning to his castle with what it is to be presumed are the spoils of war. Advancing with measured step and holding his trusty sword, he is preceding a lady who, with eyes cast down and humbled mien, follows her captor. An attendant is gathering up 50 X 30. No. 1552. ''Conquest." E. Blair Leighton. The B^oyal Academy. 51 some golden cups and other spoil at the knight's side, and in the distance others are approaching bearing in the wounded. There is perhaps a little obscurity in the design as far as the lady-prisoner is concerned, as one hardly supposes that in ages of chivalry noble knights warred against women. But certain it is that in all times and ages warriors have been keenly alive to the commercial part of their business, so it is perhaps the case that the fair dame represents a good ransom. No. 475, " Shadozvs" by Robert Hillingford, Oliver Cromwell seated in a chair moodily regarding a whole-length portrait of Charles I. At the Protector's side stands a lady, pos- sibly his favorite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, and in the background is a gentleman having the appearance of being a follower of the royal cause. It is not difficult to imagine what No. 475. 'Shadows.' 29 X Robert Hillingford. may be the feelings of mingled doubt, hesitation, and regret in the mind of the remarkable man who, in 1649, had altered a nation's destiny and signed the death-warrant of a king. Cromwell was no believer in "the divine right" of kings, but he was a patriot and a man of unflinching will. When the wrong-headed, overbearing, and obstinate monarch, unhappy Charles I, had, by his unjust acts, pressed his subjects to the verge of revolution, the peo- ple's cause found support, and themselves a most powerful leader, in the young country gen- tleman who was in the future to rule the kingdom. But the struggle must have been a fierce one, and particularly in the then state of public feeling, before Cromwell could have made up his mind to get rid of the king by ordering his execution. Branded on the one hand as a regicide, and on the other regarded as the saviour of his country, he must indeed have felt it to be a stern necessity, and one that taxed to the utmost even his iron will, before he could sign that fatal warrant which sent his king to the block. Naturally reti- 52 English Art in 1884. cent and a man of few words, Cromwell was one to act rather than to speak, but still the shadow of that tremendous deed must have overspread his life, and it is in one of the gloomy moments of doubt and retrospection that Mr. Hillingford supposes him to be in his picture. 36 X 60. No. 260. ^^ Sporting tiiit/i the Leaves that fall T Edgar Barclay. In some sort in association with this work, No. 451, " Prince Rupert]' by Stanley Berk- ley (see sketch on page 46), represents a cavalry charge, headed by the brave, impetuous, but thoughtless prince, who perhaps helped more to mar than make the fortunes of his royal master, Charles I. The scene here pictured is most likely incidental in character rather than being a reference to any special occasion. It could not be the battle of either Marston Moor or Naseby, for both were fought in the summer-time, while, in this de- sign, mad Rupert and his no less wild troopers are tearing, at headlong gallop, over snow-covered marshes. At such fiery charges no one was better than Prince Rupert, but he sadly lacked discretion, and was consequently but a very poor gen- eral officer. His career was a curiously checkered one, for, first a cavahy-officer, he was afterward a naval commander, when he was well chased over the seas by Blake, and had his ships sunk and destroyed ; while, after the Restoration, he turned philosopher, artist, engraver, and student of mechanics. No. 356, " The Champion of the Tournamcni" by George William Joy, is the portrait of a pretty-looking girl, whose No. 356. "The Champion of tennis-bat and the balls she holds in her hands sufficiently the Tournament." G. W. Joy. indicate the game of skill in which she excels. The B^oyal Academy. 53 No. 1642, ''Saying Grace]' by Laura Alma-Tadema. The gifted artist vies with her husband, although in a totally different direction, in talent. Mr. Alma-Tadema, as we are aware, has a strong archaeological and antiquarian taste in art, and in that particular line he is, perhaps, unequaled in the present day. A some- what characteristic story of Mr. Tadema has found currency with reference to the prefix. Alma, before what was really his proper name, Tadema. With that ready forethought which is peculiar to him, he is said to have observed that Tadema came among the T's, and was therefore nearly last in the alpha- bet, while a prefix with A, as an initial letter, would make his name stand among the first in the Royal Academy catalogue and elsewhere — hence the name Alma, which he henceforth adopted. His wife, Mrs. Alma-Tadema, whose picture, ''Saying Grace]' we are referring to, has hitherto made as her subjects for illustration domestic incidents, and those scenes of every-day life which are not without dramatic interest and pathos. Mrs. Tadema is fond of Dutch character and cos- tume, and that from associations which it is easy to understand. In her picture in the Academy, the family (three children with the mother and grandmother) is assembled at dinner, and a lesson of reverent thankful- 1 / -^^-H 20 X 34. Savins: Grace." No. 1642. Mrs. Alma-Tadema. ness is taught in the charming group. No. 1566, " What shall I sing?" In- terior of a Cairo cafe, by F. A. Bridgman. This subject, which might have suited the pencil of Mr. Carl Haag, represents a couple of Egyptian gentlemen seated at their ease — one with the eternal nargheel in his hand — in a cafe, while a young girl, a wandering musician, asks what she shall sing to amuse them. The picture carries with it evidence of either having been painted on the spot, or from sketches made in Cairo, for character, costum.e, and even the sunny atmosphere of the East, are all realized with the most telling effect. No. 46, "A Little Outcast" by Henriette Corkran. This artist, who is almost better known from her efforts to revive in this country the nearly extinct art of pastel-drawing. 24 X 32. No. 1566. "What shall I sing V {Interior of a Cairo Cafe.) F. A. Bridgman. 54 English Art in 1884.. 49 X 33- No. 339- '^ Herodias and her Daugh- ter." J. R. Weguelin. here exhibits a rather pathetic study of one of the waifs and strays of the metropohs. A poor flower- girl, looking suppliant and piteous, holds in her hand bunches of beautiful violets for which she is eagerly seeking a purchaser. No. 339, "Herodias and her Daughter" (St. Mark vi, 22-24), by J. R. Weguelin. The Scriptural incident of the foul murder of John the Baptist in prison, by command of Herod, has been a very favorite one with artists, and we have had pictured representations of the beautiful but evil-minded Salome, with the Baptist's head in a charger, innumerable. But the present ren- dering of the story is somewhat a new one, in that the design here shows the mother of the girl, just after her daughter had pleased the king with her dancing, whis- pering the foul words of vengeance into the girl's ear, which suggested, as a reward, the demand for the life of the unhappy prophet. Every student of Scripture history is aware that John the Baptist had incurred the hatred of the king's wife, Herodias, as the prophet had lifted up his voice in condemnation of Herod's incestuous marriage. The opportunity for ven- geance arrived, as Salome, on some occasion, danced before the monarch, and so pleased his sensual tastes that he swore to grant her any request she made, even to the half of his kingdom. Probably the girl, if left alone, would have demanded wealth, or something that would have gratified vanity and caprice, but, instigated by her mother, she asked for what could have given her no pleasure, the life of the man who had offended Herodias. In Mr. Weguelin's picture we see indicated in the distance the king and his court, and in the fore- ground the wretched girl, who lived to die a terrible death, listening to the evil words of the tempter. Turning from biblical record to historical incident, 57 x 37. another subject by Mr. Dicey, to whom we have pre- No, 561. ''Joan of Arc in Prison: viously referred, is No. 561, ''Joan of Are in Prison" F. Dicey. The lioT/al A cade mi/. 55 \ iv vU-^l ill* ■f,t f'l f*^ '_:/'/. ^ '*-' 'i[A[ll-|0|JEATx^li 67 X 53. No. 124. ^' Preparations for the Market, QuimperU." 39 X 32 No. 726. ''^ Fair Measure." {A Shop in Qmmperl^.) Stanhope A. Forbes. in which we have the pictured semblance of the fair Maid of Orleans seated in prison, hei armor by her side, and her hands grasping the hilt of her two-handed sword. The half- heroic, half-fanatic character of poor Joan is one of the most remarkable in history, and her brief life a record of some of the more unselfish and brave, as well as of the weakest, traits of our common humanity. It is a curious characteristic of the rough, warlike times in which she lived that she was thrust into prison with her arms and armor, and her bar- barous death at Rouen certainly reflects no credit upon the English. ig§ No. 525. ''Washing-Day." Everton Sainsbury. 56 English Art in 1884. 30 X 25. No. 144, ''The Haunted Lake" by Alice Havers. Among our female artists like Mrs. Elizabeth Butler, Mrs. E. M. Ward, Louise Rayner, Linnie Watt, and others, Alice Havers is entitled to a distinctive position. Her numerous pictures and designs have always been marked with good taste as well as executive ability, and, while she has a certain power of selection in her subjects, there is more of nature and less of the painting-room in her work than we often meet with in the present day. The motive of her picture, " The Haunted Lake]' is self- suggestive and singularly spontaneous — a dismal pool, whose deep waters are hidden away in solitary woods and thick, damp undergrowth of weeds and trailing plants. The old wood-cutter, the almost solitary visitant to such a scene, is pointing out to two girls, whose exploring footsteps curiosity has led to the spot, the dismal pool, and doubtless, with the garrulity of age, he is telling them the legend of where the ghost appears and other nameless horrors, giving to the weird - looking place its title. But, " uncanny " as the story may be, there are marvelous grace and charm in the pretty maidens, while the artist has been quick to seize upon and heighten the dramatic effect of her design by the contrast of youth with the decrepi- tude of age. No. 124, '•'Preparations for the Market, Quimperlel' and "A Shop in Quimperlc'" are studies in the south of Brittany, by Stanhope A. Forbes. In No. 124 an old woman, kneeling by her basket of vegeta- bles and miscellaneous commodities in- tended for market, is holding a fowl in her hands as she discusses with her daugh- ter the prices to be asked, and makes other arrangements. The girl, wearing the pic- No. 590. "T/ie Bctrotluil Ring: Arthur H. Weigall. 11"! tC^r.>vri^t;r? No. 1616. ''Sally in our Alley." E. S. Kennedy. The I(oyal Academy. SI turesque wooden sabots of her class, listens, seated upon a hen-coop. The artist appears to have painted his picture on the spot, for the ghmpse of the village in the background and the figures of the women are distinctly French. This young artist's pictures attracted atten- tion last year. In No. 1616, "Sally in our Alley" a quaint old ballad, has furnished the text for E. Sherrard Kennedy's design : " On Sunday, dressed in all my best, I walk abroad with Sally." In one of the narrower streets of London of the last century, the young apprentice, clad in gorgeous apparel — a bright-yellow coat of spruce cut — walks out with pretty Sally on his arm, the admired of all beholders. What cares he for mocking gibe and jest, for the old vintner proffering a pot of foaming porter, for the children who ape his proudly contented walk with his sweetheart, or for the thronging crowd around, who laugh, make fun of, and perhaps envy the happy couple .'' The painter's idea of old London, with its narrow streets, overhanging houses, gabled windows, and swinging oil-lamps, is not badly seen in the pres- ent Health Exhibition at South Kensington, in the portion devoted to the imitation of 24 X 36. No. 149. ''Heads or Tails?" A. Weir. our city in ancient times. But all is strangely altered, and we live now under a rule of law and order. No more do unruly apprentices flock together in the streets at some affront, real or imaginary, to those of their order ; and no longer is any class allowed to take the law into its own hands, and show in broils, tumults, and broken heads, defiance of authority and good government. Mr. Kennedy's picture has somewhat of the character of 58 English Art in 1884. an historical treatise, dealing with scenes and characters in our great city long since passed away, but it is in all respects extremely interesting. No. 1537, ''A Midway Inn" by F. VV. Lawson. In a quaint, picturesque inn, such as was the "Tabard" or "The Three Nuns" in the olden time, the artist has pictured groups of travelers who might have assembled in a similar edifice in, say, the seventeenth century. 36 X 60. No. 1537. 'M Midway Inn." F. W. Lawson. At a table in the foreground on the left, free lances and reckless scoundrels quarrel over their cards. One raises a wine-flagon, while another draws his dagger, and together these desperadoes alarm the house. In the distance a lady seeks the protection of her father, and on the right a frightened child clings to its nurse. Another lady stops, at the wild tumult, as she descends the stairs; and an old man, who rather recalls Gaspard the miser, peers curiously from a gallery in the rear. The landlady, feeling that the honor of her house is at stake, starts, keys in hand, from her cozy corner. But, apart from the brawlers, the tide of life in the old posting-inn goes on : the cook is seen by the glow of the firelight ; down a long passage we catch a glimpse of horses ; market-people are here from some neighbor- ing village; and the country element is suggested in a "jolly postboy" saluting an appar- ently by no means reluctant maiden. Then we note in a corner a Jacobite, a courtier of St. Germains, bribing a swashbuckler who drinks success to the cause of " the king over the water," as he takes the golden " lotiis cfors " of " Le Roi Solciir Full of strong life and quaint sketches of character is this pictured posting-house of the olden days — of the times of Marlborough and Turenne, of Villeroi and Sarsfield, who fought in the open field, and our soldiers followed "Corporal John," and found "glory and plunder but never retreat" in the trenches of some Flemish town or in the pillage of some Rhenish chateau. The artist, Mr. F. W. Lawson, is one whose life has not been without its vicissitudes. Brother of the The 1(02/ al Academy. 59 late Cecil G. Lawson, the young landscape-painter whose recent early death we had occasion to re- gret, he began his artistic career as a designer on wood for various periodicals, and notably " The Graphic." Then followed his series of illustrations of the childish beggar-life of London — the sorry existence of those poor little match-sellers and street Arabs, whose uncertain way of keeping body and soul together must be almost as great a mys- tery to themselves as it is to the outside public. The artist's well-known " Childrc^i of the Great City" "Imprisoned Spring]' and " Dawfi" the lat- ter representing a poor girl dying in a wretched garret, supported in her brother's arms, while the first gleam of day through the window suggests that other " dawn " to which she is about awaken- ing, were all marked with a feeling of poetical pathos. Other artists studying London street-life are Mr. T. B. Kennington, Mrs. Archibald Weir, and Miss E. M. Merrick. No. 856, " Primrose-Day^ Two little street Arabs, one a girl, a flower-seller, is en- gaged fixing in the button-hole of a shoeless crossing-sweeper the favorite flower of the late Lord Beaconsfield, in wearing which members of the Tory party celebrate the anniversary 60 X 43. No. 856. ^^Primrose-Day" E. M. Merrick. No. 818. "/f Dueling la^vfuli" Sydney W. Lee. 6o English Art in 1884. of that lamented nobleman's death. The design is grotesque enough, when one considers how little the giver and receiver know about the matter. No. 818, "A Dueling laivful?" by Sydney W. Lee, is rather an amusing design, rep- resenting a soldier in red coat, seated over a bowl of punch, with the chaplain of his regi- ment putting the knotty question to him suggested in the title of the work. The chaplain is of opinion that the question is a difficult one, but he hopes that latitude may be 20 X 25. No. 208. ''An East IVind." H. Helmick. granted to soldiers in this particular instance. A soldier and a parson together seem a curiously assorted couple, particularly with such a subject under discussion as that now upon the tapis. That a man whose trade is v/ar, and his hope of promotion founded upon deeds of blood, should submit to indignity or insult without at once resenting it, is evi- dently a proposition the worthy divine can not tackle, and he is, if anything, inclined to concede the point by a semi-evasion like that we have but now referred to. In the great military nations of Europe, where the laws as to dueling are very stringent, an officer in The Royal Academy. 6i the army is in rather an unfortunate position : for if, when insulted, he resents it in a manner which suggests itself, the law takes cognizance of the fact ; whereas, if he does not do so, he is ostracized by all his brother officers. There is capital character in No. 208, ''An East Wind" by Howard Helmick, a study of an old gentleman who certainly is rapidly approaching the " last stage of all that ends this strange eventful history," standing gazing ruefully from the window, as he seeks to explain the twinge of rheumatism in his back by finding that the wind is in that ill-omened quarter — the east. The study of extreme senility in the figure of the old man is mingled — as usual with Mr. Helmick's works — with a strong sense of humor. Nos. 1554, 1555, and 1556, "A Love-Story" (^' The Letter" — "^4 Trial" — " Liappier than ever"), by Maria Brooks. Three tableaux in one frame: No. i, Dolly, the housemaid, J8 ^^P 9 i -^^^ HLajV^ 1 -^ 1^ 1 i bI * ^yfj^^^H 1 1 ^K^vT^ ^l^^^E p! =1^. ^ ^j^-^S; 17 X 10 No. 1556. "^ Trial." "Happier tlian ever.' 'M Love-Story." Maria Brooks. reading a letter just received; No. 2, poor Dolly seated and in tears over her missive; and No. 3, that fortunate maiden looking the very embodiment of contentment and delight. Of course, a good deal is left to the imagination in this subject. It is difficult to know what has happened in the second tableau to cause such grief Has Lubin played a prac- tical joke on poor Dolly, and stated in the body of his letter that he no longer loves her, while in a postscript he confesses he has only been having a little fun, and assures her of his undying affection } That appears a not unlikely explanation of this pictured page in the life of a little housemaid, but anyway the subject is cleverly and suggestively treated. The picture sketched on the next page is one of two clever genre subjects by a young artist, to which attention may well be drawn in these pages. They were hung rather out of 62 English Art in 1884. sight in the Royal Academy, and have been missed altogether by many visitors. The first is " The Archaologist" an old gentleman, in eighteenth-century costume, examining some sculpture in a museum ; the second "^ Walk with Grandpapa" remarkable for ease and V -i! ' "I" No. 120. "^ JValk with Grandpapa." H. E. Detmold. close study of character. Mr. Detmold has studied in foreign schools, and is a painter whose work should be looked for in future exhibitions. No. 386, ''Going to Work" This and the two following works are "Three Scenes in a Minc7-'s Life" from the brush of A. Dixon : The B^oyal Academy. 63 70 X 50. No. 386. ''Going to Work." " ' Get up ! ' the caller calls, ' get up ! ' And in the dead of night To win the bairns their bite and sup, I rise, a weary wight." In a cottage home a miner, at earliest light of dawn, has risen from his bed, and, safety-lamp in hand, says farewell to his wife and child as he hurries off to his laborious and often dangerous work. The young wife, standing by the window, with all her life bound up in child and husband, thinks not of harm or ill to happen to him she loves so well. In No. 567, "To the Rescue]' all is changed. A terrible explosion in the mine, smoke from the pit-mouth, and women, children, and others are flying to the scene in agony of apprehension for the safety of those near and dear to them. Then follows the horror of suspense before those who are but too willing dare attempt to succor those who may yet be living in the dark re- cesses of the mine. But at length it is pronounced safe, for those anxious to help, to attempt a rescue. The men fearlessly descend into the prison-house ; and then, in No. 544, "Rescued" we see those happily wrested from the jaws of death. The young wife is there, and, with a joy and thankfulness too great for utterance, the child cHngs to her father, and even the dog fawns upon his master as he licks his hand. Such are the stirring passages in the life of the laborer in mines. But this is only one side of the picture ; the other we dare not touch upon, for it is harrowing in its details, and the despair of those whose fate it is to look no more upon the living is perhaps suggested by contrast in the happiness of the No. 567. 60 X 25. ''To the Rescue." 60 X 25. No. 544. "Rescued." "Three Scenes in a Miner s Life." A. Dixon. 64 English Art in 1884. ■ ■■( -';j^:i:-'r-%fii: ;.¥' 62 X 42. No. 795- " Wishes and Fishes." Weedon Grossmith. "V AvHU^' />!?,/'/., A J \ ' - ^ { - v^ 46 X 36. No. 24. "Artists." Robert Fowler. "All things come to those who wait." 24 X 42. No. 154^' "The Last Mile." R. Collinson. The I^OT/al Academy. 6q favored, whose brighter story is seen in the picture of the "Rescued" we have but now referred to. No. 795, "Wishes and Fishes" ("All things come to those who wait"), by Weedon Grossmith, is, properly speaking, portraiture in costume of half a century ago. A boy and girl, a pair of Izaak Waltonians, are patiently fishing on the sedgy bank of a river. The little folk look both pretty and picturesque, with much childish grace about their figures, but, truth to speak, they are anything but keen anglers, and appear weary of non-success. Let us hope that the quotation in the text will come true, so that patience may meet with its reward. No. 24, "Artists" by Robert Fowler. Two very graceful female figures, one seated, regarding a canvas upon the easel, which is placed out in the open air. The design is just sufficiently obscure to make it interesting. Are these beautiful girls — for they really are alto- gether charming in their light, silvery draperies and red head-dresses — themselves professors of palette and brushes, or are they only artists in taste, feeling, and appreciation of art .'' There is nice symbolism in the motive of the work, and so much grace in the conception and composition that one is quite content to take the picture with all its little half-suggested doubts, and accept it gratefully for the sense of beauty it arouses in the mind. In No. 1 54 1, "The Last Mile" by Robert CoUinson, we see a good old dame, appar- ently a villager of the humblest class, who has been tramping wearily along the road until she reaches a mile-stone, happily the last before she reaches her destination. Life's load of years not being sufficient, she has to carry a bundle, containing possibly all her worldly goods, and this she has placed upon the ground as she rests her- self while attempting to decipher, upon the hard stone, the distance yet to be traversed ere the feeble footsteps will bring her to shelter and re- pose. Fields and foliage look young and bright and beautiful, in strong contrast to the venerable life which now, like the stone the poor old lady is consulting, indicates the last stage of the journey. No. 311, "The Quarrel" by C. W. Pittard. " Here's much to do with hate, but more with love." Here, again, the subject is one full of suggestion. A young lady, richly robed in pink satin, is seated 9 44 X 34- No. 311. ''The Quarrel." C. \V. Pittard. 66 English Art in 1884. in a chair, anger in her face and mien. Behind her stands a young cavalier, crushing his broad-leaved hat in one hand, while the other is fiercely closed. Upon the floor, at the lady's feet, lie some flowers, which have evidently been thrown there in scorn and disgust. What has occasioned this dire disturbance, what has aroused the hate, which, as Shakespeare says, is so near akin to love, between the pair.? It is to be presumed that they are lovers, and, if that be so, ''Atnaniiitm ira anion's intcgratioestl' and, shortly, their love will be the stronger for this passing anger. But, meantime, the social atmosphere is disturbed. The flowers — those pretty love-tokens, suggestive of beauty, peace, and happiness — are fiercely cast away, and their at one time loving donor is considered almost as a foe. So much for the passion of love and its strange vicissitudes. 36 X 72. No. 646. "Cw/J'i Straits, Nnv Zealand." Nicolas Chevalier. No. 646, " Cook's Straits, Neiv Zealand" by Nicolas Chevalier, is a departure in art, on the part of this painter, from subjects we are accustomed to from his brush. With Eastern scenes, views in Cairo, and elsewhere, we are all familiar, but, like Luke Fildes and other of our more enterprising artists, he has exercised his genius in striking out a new path for himself with considerable success. M. Chevalier's pictures always exhibit great care and technical completeness. No. 95, "For those in Peril on the Sea" by Jessie Macgregor. The painter, a youno- artist of considerable promise, made her debut a few seasons since with her picture illustrat- ing in three tableaux the quaint old ballad of "The Mistletoe-Bough." This she followed in succeeding years with works of more or less promise, until the production of her present picture. In an old wainscoted chamber, whose large window opens out upon the sea, a family group is assembled. Either it is evening, or the apartment is darkened by the rac- ing storm, and two girls are singing to the accompaniment of a third at the piano. One The lioyal Academy. 67 little fellow, too young to be conscious of impending evil, is engaged with his toys upon the floor, and a servant holds at the window a child who looks out upon the angry ocean. As far as the sentiment of the picture is concerned, it matters not whether the singers carol 36 X 49, No. 95. ^^ For those in Peril on the Sea." Jessie Macgregor. plaintively of danger to those near and dear to them, or, taking a deeper, wider view, whisper in sweet melody a prayer for the safety of all those " who go down to the deep in ships." The grandeur and solemnity of the war of elements in a storm are amply realized in the darkened atmosphere seen from the window and in the saddened faces of the hymn-singers. No. 499, " 7 he Herring-Harvest" by John White, is a characteristic study of a fishing-village, with a fish- erman selling his store of herrings from the panniers with which his donkey is laden. At a fisherman's cottage, on the right of the picture, children are also amusing themselves with the fish, which, during this season of plenty, form their staple article of food. The street is a curious, winding one, with those remarkably primitive cottages, half mud, half plaster, one is accus- tomed to see in such villages. No. 161 5, ''A Yarmouth Rozo" by Percy R. Craft, is in some respects not dissimilar in motive from the last-named subject — only that Yarmouth is, as we are aware, a place of importance on the east coast of Eng- No. 499. 68 X 47. ^ The Herrins;-Harvesty John White. 68 English Art in 1884.. land. The houses in this picture, while they are quite as picturesque — oddly-shaped, with pointed roofs and other individual peculiarities — are altogether larger, and form indeed the 32 X 18. No. 1615. "A Yarmouth Row" P. R. Craft. leading motive of the design. Of all the large towns on the Norfolk coast there is, per- haps, not one which has more completely retained its ancient character than Yarmouth — The I(oyal Academy. 69 some of the streets, like the one in our illustration, almost reminding us of some of the curious old wynds of Edinburgh. The town of Yarmouth is as much the resort of the middle and lower classes for sea-bathing as Brighton, in the south of England, is for those of a somewhat higher position socially. Yarmouth is also a popular sketching-ground for artists, who are never weary of delineating the Yare, the fishing-boats, and steam-tugs, together with the more prominent points of interest upon the coast with which the district certainly abounds. 54 X 84- No. 715. ''St. Agnes, of the Early Christian Martyrs." James Archer. Mr. James Archer, a member of the Scottish Academy, a painter who has been an exhibitor for many years, painting both subject-pictures and portraits, sent this year two pictures to the Royal Academy. The first is an elaborate composition representing the martyrdom of St. Agnes ; the second, entitled " You a Christian ! " A young pagan lover dis- covers a cross worn by his betrothed, and starts back with the exclamation " You a Christian ! " There are much learning and evident painstaking in these two pictures; but Mr. Archer's portraits, notably one lately painted of Professor Blackie, show his powers to the best advantage. No. 1653, "Vespers" by F. D. Hardy. The subject introduces us to monastic life; not the phase of monkish existence in which our well-known young painter, Mr. Dendy Sadler, 70 English Art in 1884. delights, and which he deHneates with such keen humor — the sly indulgence of the worthy fathers in the good things of this life, their preference for pastimes like fishing, etc., to pen- ance, or similar scenes — but a group of monks in the belfry, ringing in their brethren to service. They are shut off from the interior of the church, which is to be seen in the back- ground, by a curtain screen, which one of their number is closing. Probably their present ^/ ^ ■rt.Tr T-;(:j-7ft^r_ ,j' r;,,^.^^, , , im l^^^~ ^ 1, T — --t'- M .J ^^ym^iu.^ r^ 50 X 41. No. 1653. "Vespers." F. D. Hardy. occupation is not quite so distasteful to them as digging their own graves, kneeHno- all night upon the cold stones of the chapel, fasting, or other like cheerful modes of passing away their time with which they are credited by historical record. Still, the view of life is a curious one, when we see the grave and learned doing the work of menials ; the self-evident object of existence as social beings cast aside for self-denials which are opposed to nature, and are not demanded by law. Scripture, or common sense. Many of the monks in the olden time, like Fra Angelico and Bartolommeo, were splendid artists, and made their age illustri- The lioyal Academy. 71 ous by their works, or, like Savonarola and Martin Luther, were pioneers in a revolution of truth ; but modern professors of this curious system of self-sacrifice appear to do little else 28 X 36. No. 300. ''Caught Tripping." A. W. Bayes. than fritter away the great boon of life in useless observances and customs, doing no good to the great human family of which they form a part. In saying this much, however, we say nothing against Mr. Hardy's picture, which is not only excellent in scenic effect, but also as a study of character. 30 X 50. No. 714. " 'Mong the Thick-falling Dews." Edgar Wills. No. 300, "Caught Tripping" by A. W. Bayes. Here the scene presented to us is that of a Puritan's household. The master of the house, evidently a stanch non-conformist, with 72 English Art in 1884. steeple-crowned hat and clothes of somber shade, has been away from home, and now returning, Bible in hand, opens the door, when, dreadful to relate, he finds his three daughters — prim lassies in white caps and gray dresses — engaged, the one dancing while the others are approving spectators of the performance! Had they only been engaged in sew- ing, or reading " the good book," all might have been well, but this exhibition of natural feel- ing in the young is really too shocking. The dancer trips it merrily, and looks charming in her primly modest costume. We may imagine the dcnoiimcnt, the righteous wrath of the old Puritan, and the sound lecturing the young sinners will get before they are con- sidered purged of their wickedness. Technically, the de- sign is full of merit, the incident being fully told, and most amusingly. No. 714, "'Mong the Thick-falling Dews'' by Edgar Wills. A pleasant pastoral, with cattle in the eventide settling to rest among the thick grasses of pasture-land near the margin of some water. The time appointed for Nature's rest approaches, and in the gathering gloom the group of cows — animals so specially typical of peace- ful industry — forms a natural and suggestive adjunct to such a scene. No. 574, ''A Side-Glance" by G. Crosland Robinson. 16 X 13. No. 574. "A Silk-Glance." G. C. Robinson. " She gives a side-glance and looks down — Beware ! " A study of a bright, pleasant-looking girl, who glances downward to the left. As regards the original of the picture, the warning in the quotation may not be without its value to the more impression- able of the opposite sex. No. 698, " The Young Squire" by Francis S. Walker. In the corner of an orchard the young gentleman who forms the motive of the work is stretched at his ease full length upon the grass, amusing himself for the fleeting hour chatting to two girls. The maidens are not, we should imagine, of exactly the same sphere of life as the squire, and they appear to be looking at him as quite a superior being. Of course the damsels, pretty and innocent-looking as they are, may have that shrewd common sense and commercial instinct enabling them to see in a young, handsome, and wealthy gentleman not at all a bad match, matrimonially speaking. But it is quite certain, even if he has any thought of settling for life, that he can not, according to the laws of England, marry both of them, and to The B^oyal Academy. 73 select either one or the other would arouse horrible jealousy and heart-burning. Besides, it is not at all unusual for young squires to see a great many pretty girls, and have no other thought than whiling away a passing hour or so in agreeable flirtation. But we wish them well, for they certainly form a picturesque and charming group. No. 698. ''The Young Squire." F. S. Walke*r. 39 '^ 49- In No. 329, ''Ludgate Hill, 1883," the artist, C. J. Watson, illustrates one of the busiest centers of the British metropolis, and one of the five great roadways of traffic branching off from the basilica of St. Paul's. The cathedral, a peep of which is obtained in the picture, is second only in size to St. Peter's at Rome, and has ever been held by those versed in ecclesiastical architecture to be even more symmetrical and of juster proportions than the colossal edifice in the Eternal City. The latter building has, however, the advantage in that, while the fine site where it is situated is kept comparatively open and free, St. Paul's is unfortunately dwarfed by the close proximity of surrounding warehouses, which scarcely permit the ordinary passenger the opportunity of judging of the architectural beauties of the grand old cathedral. The garden of a pretty country house, with clustering ivy, honeysuckle, and other trail- ing plants, and two girls, one seated, the other reading a letter as she thoughtfully paces 74 English Art in 1884. ii b ^^s^=7ii*": along the walk, has formed the subject for a picture which the artist, Arthur L. Vernon, calls "// luiglit Iiave been'' (No. 123). We are led to imagine that the young lady is reading in her just-received missive of the marriage of a former admirer, and we must also suppose she reads the announcement with some regret. She is, however, still young enough and pretty enough to lead one to hope that there may be a solace for disappointed love in store for her, so that her future path in life may not be an altogether solitary one. No. 26, " The Pathos of Life': by R. G. Hutchison. " Pale Death knocks with impartial hand At prince's hall and peasant's hut." 30 X 15. No. 329. ''Liidgate Hill, 18S3." C. J. Watson. In one of the curious, cupboard-like beds that we occasionally meet with in a country cottage, a peasant, the father and bread- winner for the family, lies dying. His figure is not seen in the picture, but the story is most graphically told, and he is surely there. Bowed down in grief, his wife kneels upon the floor, and his aged mother leans against the side of the bed. The children, scarce appreciat- ing the magnitude of their disaster, are yet hushed and somewhat frightened, and desist from play. The artist touches with a poet's feeling upon the lights and shadows of life, and in this design pictures pathetically the universal empire of the dread foe to whom both prince and peasant must at last suc- cumb. No. 16 18, "Hickojy Dickory Doekl' by Edith Hipkins, is a pleasant study of a young mother holding her little child up to the clock, while she repeats the old nursery rhyme. Miss Hipkins, who is steadily improving in her art, has cleverly availed herself of the attractive sentiment of motherhood in chis nice little work. No. 312, '' Rlcditation: by A. Glendening, Jr. A rather spruce maiden in quilted skirt, and wearing a coquettish little cap, has found her way to a corner of the garden, where, sitting down, with love-letter in her lap, she resigns No. 123. "//■ udirht have bee?;: herself to her thoughts. What those thoughts may be is A. L. Vernon. e K S a Ph The 1^07/ a/ A cade mi/. IS 72 X b4. • No. 26. " The Pathos of Life." R. G. Hutchison. left to the spectator to determine, but they evidently are not sad ones, and all will wish so pretty a lass a happy fate. No. 240, "A Ramsay Wrecker" by J. H. E. Partington. A wild sea, scarce settled down from recent storm, a stiffish gale blowing, and rain, with a good, strong-built fisher lass, loaded with wreckage which she is conveying along the sands to her home, are the ingredients from which Mr. Partington has constructed a clever picture. The girl has not made much of a "haul," however, her prize apparently consisting principally of planks from the ill-fated ship. But she seems to be content, and has probably loaded herself to the extent of her power. The receding tide appears to show in the distance a vessel which has 2g X 22. No. 1618. "Jliikorv Dickory Dock." E. Hipkins. 36 X 2S. No. 312. '"'' Meditation." Alfred Glendening, Jr. 76 English Art in 1884. fared ill upon the treacherous sands, and it is possibly from that source the fair wrecker secures her spoil. She is barefoot, and in her evident physical strength looks not un- graceful. No. 1524, '' Expcctatioiil' by G. Hillyard Swinstead. A pastoral subject, with barefooted country girl making her way from her father's cottage, followed by those who are evidently her pensioners, some geese and a calf The creatures, fearless where they have ever met with kindness, seek from her hand the food to which they are accustomed. This charming little picture is nice in design, scheme of color, and general effect. ■ In the white geese the artist has embodied, while he has carried much further, the rudimentary principle of coloring that everything harmonizes with white. Another work from the same hand, No. 1582, with- out title, but with the quotation — No. 240. "^ Ramsay WreckerT J. H. E. Partington. ' Oh ! merry goes the time when the heart is young, For Paris gives the pippin for the best song sung "- is rather Watteau-like in motive, and very different from the design we have but now referred to. Here we see a group of ladies and gentlemen who, having selected a shady spot under some trees, are indulging in a little siesta or picnic upon the greensward. Careless and young, when the heart is fresh and life is in its spring-time, the group reposes in joyous ease, and makes merry with music and laughter. Nor have the merry-makers forgotten creature comforts, as the viands spread upon their impromptu table testify. In No. 313, '' Circe]' the artist, H. M. Paget, presents to us the beautiful enchantress and daughter of Sol seated at her loom with a tiger at her side. One can hardly suppose that the fell sorceress, who worked such woe to the unhappy companions of Ulysses in turning them into swine, or behaved with no less cruelty to Scylla and others, is here engaged weaving her mischievous spells, for she looks quite contemplative, and very graceful and pretty. No. 91, '"Quiet Hoitrs" by Percy Bigland. A capital study of a young fish-wife, seated in a kind of balcony of her house, in a quaint old Flemish fishing-village, while her good- man is away upon the seas. She has thrown off her sabots for greater comfort, and looks quiet and contemplative as her busy fingers ply the knitting-needles. Her face is of that 77?^ I(oi/al Academy, 11 better-class type, where the characteristics of her race are sufficiently and yet not too promi- nently marked. Her needs in this life are few, and those probably supplied in the humblest fashion ; and yet she looks the very picture of contentment and happiness. No. 145, " When the Long Days are ended]' by W. Frank Calderon. The artist, who is the son of Mr. Calderon, the Academician, adopts an entirely different role -of art from his M^a^i 30 X 20. No. 1524. "Expectation." G. H. Swinstead. father. But, in another way, his designs have sentiment, and are strong in their adherence to nature. In the picture before us (page 80) a wagoner brings down his team of horses to drink in the shallow part of a stream. The labors of the day are over, and the wearied beasts lave their bodies in the cool waters. The sky is brilliant in the light of the depart- ing sun, and the whole scene suggests the time of coming quiet and rest. There is a character of bright Hfe and sunshine in H. Tuck's "^4 Corner of the Hay- 78 English Art in 1884. fieldl' No. 813, that carries with it a peculiar charm. The new-mown hay lies thick upon the meadows, and the hay-makers are busy at their task loading the wagons with Nature's 37 X 62. No. 1582, "C/z.^ merry goes the time when the heart is young, For Paris gives the pippin for the best song sung." G. H. Swinstead. summer harvest. The hay-field and its calm, joyous associations have ever been a theme of special interest with the English artist. In sylvan subjects the painters of France have, as a rule, preferred more dramatic designs, or those in which the sad element predominates, as 25 X 35- No. 313. "Circe." H. M, Paget. we find in their aged wood-cutters or weary laborers, while in colder latitudes and more sterile countries, like Russia, works of this class appear to have had little or no hold upon The I{oyal Academy, 79 the imaginations of the people. But with English artists the hay-field has certainly ever been a fruitful source of inspiration. No. 509, " To Anthea" by G. C. Hindley. An exceedingly vigorous and spirited design, in which the principal figure is a gentleman, who, having thrown off his shoes and cast his No. 91. "Quiet Hours." Percy Bigland. rapier upon the ground, pens his missive to his lady. Her portrait is upon the table before him, and, whether inspired by that or by more tender recollections, certain it is that face and figure testify to the writer's earnestness of purpose. A friend, appearing upon the scene, presses back the arras as he enters the apartment. In the second picture by this artist, No. 195, " The Standard-Bear crl' the study is chiefly 8o English Art in 1884. No. 145. 24 X 31. When the Long Days are ended." W. F, Calderon. 47 ^ 34- No. 813. "-A Corner of the Hay-field— Les Foins." H. TuCK. The I(oyal Academy. 8t an exercise in character and color. The face, if we mistake not, expresses firm resolve and inflexible will, so that he who in battle would rob him of his sacred trust can only hope to do so either when life has fled or all power of resistance is beaten down. No. 29, "/';« for the Fei^ry" by Frank E. Cox. A young gleaner, whose armful of corn shows that she has been diligent, is here pictured waiting at the river-side for the ferry-boat. Bronzed by the sun and with somewhat wearied gait, for the girl has doubtless toiled the long day through to earn the little bread of which she is now assured, she seeks her home. It requires no imagination to picture how poor and humble that home must 28 X 22. No. 509. "To Anthea." G. C. Hindley. be, for it is but the poorest who are driven to so precarious a means of obtaining a scanty meal. Mr. Cox, in his picture, with peculiar grace, teaches a lesson in the history of the laboring poor, and fails not to arouse in the mind a feeling of sympathy which is near akin to charity. No. 229, "Africa" by Thomas Hill, pictures some fruit-sellers with their store of melons and oranges, together with vegetables, arranged in baskets for sale. As a study of character, the design is powerful, the calm and somewhat dignified composure of these people as they quietly wait for customers, and the hot and glowing atmosphere of Africa, being excellently rendered. 82 English Art in 1884. No. 908, "Ruth" by S. J. Solomon. "And Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee.'" One of the most pathetic stories of the Bible is here beautifully illustrated by the artist. The moment selected for illustration is when Ruth, clinging to the one she loved so well, 45 "• 35- No. 195. " T/ie Standard-Bearerr G. C. Hindley. Uttered the beautiful words quoted above. The scheme of color in the picture is very deli- cate, and the light draperies are in pleasant harmony with the bright Eastern atmosphere and sky. The first among English animal-painters is Mr. Briton Riviere, the painter of ''Circe': and of ''Daniel in the Lions Dcnl' familiar to us in countless engravings. This painter, who stands to the present generation in the place of Landseer, is an earnest and highly educated worker, aiming at a higher level intellectually than most painters who devote The B^oyal Academy. 83 themselves to the portrayal of animal life. In Sir Edwin Landseer's works, one of the principal attractions was the human interest and character with which he endowed the brute creation ; in Mr. Riviere's pictures (excepting, perhaps, in his " Circe ") his animals 44 X 34- No. 29. "/';« for the Ferry." F. E. Cox. seem to live and move as in nature. In " The King and his Satellites" sketched on page 84, there is, as a critic well remarks, " no departure either from leonine or jackal nature, and yet the simple incident of the colossal brute stalking onward, with his abject clients at his heels, who would gladly devour him had they the chance, tells a story eloquently." Nothing that Mr. Riviere has painted, since the pictures we have referred to, will interest more than his "Lion and Jackals]' which is now doubtless in the hands of the engraver. In another subject, ''Actceon" attacked by dogs, an upright picture, the interest is cen- tered more in landscape ; but in '' The Eve of St. Bartholomew " we have another composition which is far more popular. In spite of this, Mr. Riviere's natural bent is to paint classical and idealistic subjects, and we may yet see many works of imagination from his hand. 84- English Art in 1884. -. /7 1 .- i ^-^<^'^ ^ ^^'•. :^ j-a^ 50 X 40. No. 229. "■Africa." Thomas Hill. 71 X 51. No. 908. "Until." S. J. Solomon. There are four pictures in the Academy by the veteran animal-painter, T. Sidney Cooper, R.A., one of which, cows on the banks of the Thames, near Tilbury Fort, measures about eleven by seven and a half feet; also four by Richard Ansdell, R. A. Industrious as ever, but failing in health, Mr. Ansdell sends year after year his favorite studies of sheep in the Highlands of Scotland; also scenes from the south of Spain, with mules with their gay trappings, Spanish peasants, and scenery near the Alhambra. Mr. Ansdell has an estate in the north of Scotland, and many of the animals in his pictures are portraits from life. ./f^'" i' ' Ai(,r,('i (i *'' «r^. ^ \ t ' 14 36 X 63. No. 88. ''The King and his Satti/iks." Briton Riviere, R. A. The I^OT/al Academy. 85 55 X 47- No. 52. "The Eve of St. Bartholomew." Briton Riviere, R. A.