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August 18, 1855.] THE LEA .DE1. 799
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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French Criticism Ox English Pictures.* S...
drawing . Mr . Goodam , does not draw his figures , he only sketches them . JIib" Ball for the Benefit of the Widow " is a pretty composition , tolerably coloured but feebly drawn . That stamp of individuality which drawing alone can give is wanting to all the persons , both great and small , whom the artist has set in motion . Yet the picture will please ; the idea is lively , the composition clever , and the public cares little for merit of execution . I can say without flattery tha ); one might spend a very pleasant day amon" the tableaux tie genre which England has sent us , and which form its best contribution . They are works of good taste without any pretension to * renius , finished with praiseworthy care , and never deficient in cleverness . JVfr . Hobsi . by ' s " Faithful Friend" is a marvellously-drawn large dog allowing liimself to be caressed by a little girl . The child is one of those fragile
creature s which the English know so well how to rear . The head is truthful and lifelike ; unfortunately the hand is out of proportion . Mr . Puirxips ' s " Public Writer" is a charming picture , setting aside the rawness of the colouring . Any one would sooner apply to this stout open-air escribano than to our scribes , who put up in their windows : —Unfortunate persons will here meet tvith the attention due to their position . The " First Meeting of Peter the Great and Catherine , " by Mr . Egg , is not without a certain grandeur . The young emperor in uniform looks with curiosity , interest , and desire at the stout beauty whom he will one day raise to the throne . The future Czarina fulfils her menial functions with innate majesty , and if her eyes drop in presence of her guests , it is from pride , not timidity . Mr . Leslie ' s * Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadmon" is a delicious page out of Tristram Shandy . The widow is fascinatingly blooming , and on looking at the slight handkerchief which ill conceals her bosom , it is impossible not to hope that
Uncle Toby ' s famous wound has had no unfortunate result . Our friend Tristram ' s worthy relative is in good health ; his complexion is ruddy , and he is sufficientl y stout , but not too much so , which would make one uneasy . From the way m which he is advancing pour souffler dans Vceil of the handsome widow , it is easy to recognise a man not yet detached from the things of this world . Truly , the siege of Dunkirk can only have grazed his vigorous frame , and hts position is a far , far better one than that of Pope before the pitiless Lady Montague . Mr . Fkith ' s picture , showing us the love of the old poet treated with disdain by the noble traveller , is a superficial work . I see in Lady Montague nothing more than a handsome woman , laughing heartily : and even her beauty is too modern , too French , too Parisian . I should like to see in her the great lady and clever writer , the Sevignk of England , the woman who first gave us exact notions of the East , the benefactress of Europe , who brought us inoculation . Mr . Fkith has given us nothing more than a tall , handsome womanshowing her teeth and her wit .
, Sir E . Landseeb ' s animals have the same defects as the men painted by his brother artists : trop d ' esprit . It is only France and Belgium that know how to paint animals . The picture called " Jack on Guard" is d ' une finesse agacante . Dress up these dogs in a coat and hat and you will have a picture out of the Charivari at the time when it was publishing " Animals Painted by Themselves . " Jack is the defender of property : we will put him on the hat of a gendarme . He seems to def y thieves and to say to them : ? ' Only try ! here are teeth that will have something to say to your skin . " The little dog ( I should cock a paper-cap knowingly on his head ) says familiarly to Jack ? " Give me a little , my good gendarme ; only as much as would go in a nutshell . Mv parents made me so small that 1 might not be expensive malhenrs her
to feed . " The large watchdog is a lady qui a en den ; head should be tied up in an old cotton handkerchief . She does not ask , she only looks at the meat . She belongs to . the category of the bashful poor : you may be sure she has eight children lying on straw waiting for her . The poodle is a beggar by trade , a shameless boast , idle , a glutton , and a buffoon ; he is doing the grand , and trying to mollify the gendarme by some immense joke . The mustifl ' , who comes next , seems to be taking the measure of the faithful Jack ; he sees that there is something to be done ; he feels Btrong , and knows by experience that " nothing venture , nothing have : he is meditating a set-to with the gendarmerie . The last comer , who has not yet crossed the threshold of the door , is a prudent individual practising an expectant policy , ready to run away if there is fighting , and to
share the spoils if there is plundering . . It would be easy to do the same with another scene of the private lite ot dogs , called " Breakfast . " These compositions , too amusing for pictures , are excellent for vignettes ; and Sir E . Landseer is the English painter who has been oftenest and best engraved . We have all admired the engraving ¦ c alled " The Sanctuary . " That large stag standing in the midst of a pool , motionless , listening with outstretched ears to the distant sounds of the chase , whilst a ilock of scared wild-fowl flies away behind him , is one of the ¦ siinpiost and most dramatic compositions ever invented by an animal painter . Well , the effect of the picture is less fine than that of the engraving ; it « ccms as if the brush had struggled unsuccessfully against the engraver . Yet Sir E . Landsbeu works out his ideas with a perfectly marvellous power of execution . The horses at the farrier's and the tethered ram are by a master ' s hand . But the j 4 iirhtlv exaggerated precision of the drawing , the above all
rawness of the colouring , a something hard in the manner , ami , , the perfect absence of nairvte , g ive to this style of painting less charm than merit , and it amuses the eye- without satisfying the taste . Have you "oticod two small monkeys gnawing a pineapple ? That picture is worth , > O , O 0 O francs . . , , i , < 1 One of tho most curious p ictures , because it shows tho labours ot a clever mnn in pursuit of fancy , is " Tho Quarrel of Oberon nnd litanm , by a Scotch painter , Mr . J . M . Paton . . Shakspkakb , in a fairy piece which is a pendant , to the Jempcst , lina introduced Oberon , Kin" of tlie Fairies , and Ins wile Tituma , into the city of AthonB , in tho midst of tho heroic times . Oberon suspects his wile of taking too great an interest in Theseus ; Titania accuses her husband ot looking too admiringly at the ama / . on llippolyta , mother of the chaste hero ofi ' our acquaintance . Tho two sovereigns of tho invisible world quarrel in a bourgeois way in the midst of their winged court . Mr . Paton has ondeavourcd to represent 011 canvas theso small ,
mysterious , blooming , very naked , and tolerably silly people , which came all sparkling and airy out of Shakspeare ' s imagination . His picture is the work of a draughtsman who has done his best . Oberon in green tit > hts and a pink pallium is the best type of an Englishman ; Titania is a thorough-bred lady who has not put her corset on . I do not know why it is that the nude always shocks one in English painting . I always think that the young Misses who are curtseying in naturalibus will run away crying For shame ! if they see that we are looking at them . With Mr . Paton , the dispute of the King and Queen of the Fairies is a polite quarrel , accompanied by academic gestures . From the movement of the lips , it is easy to see that they are quarrelling in English . Hound the principal group the artist has laboriously assembled an
innumerable crew of comical bttle beings : pot-bellied dwarfs , nimble demons , grotesque poussaJis , W ill-o ' -wisps loaded with iron , white and black imps , the heads of some carefully covered with the calix of a flower , others mitred with a shell in the best taste , one riding on a butterfly , another on a snail , this one at war with a spider , that one ' gravely occupied in blowing ofF a dandelion ' s head . Around them , insects hum a rhythm , beetles steadily scratch up the earth , flowers twist themselves about consciously ; a scientific vertigo has seized upon the whole assembly \ there is a perfect storm of kisses , as thick , but as cold , as hail . By some sleightof-hand of which an Englishman only was capable , the artist has grouped this multitude of little naked beings without anything that could shock the
most puritanical eye ; no more of their rosy flesh is seen than is proper to look at ; their closest caresses have something icy in them : sylphs and imps seem like so many schoolboys who have been warned to " amuse yourselves , but be good . " This interpretation of Shaksfeare's poetry is extremely clever ; but the wild reveries of the great master of fancy , thus mitigated , calmed down and made respectable , give me the idea—I hope the English will excuse the comparison—of iced punch . And yet our neig hbours would have a fine game in their hands if they would be colourists . Their somewhat gloomy climate ought to incline them to colour . Colour is not a tropical production . Under a cloudless sky , in a pure , dry , clear atmosphere , nothing is seen but lines . Shade is wanting
and without shade , lig ht is of no value . That is why the Greeks were such great draughtsmen and such poor colourists : they no more know the value of a sunbeam than a millionnaire understands the value of a halfpenny . It was under the salt mists of Venice , and the heavy sky of Holland , that the beauty of the contrasts of lig ht and shade were first suspected . A picture by Rembrandt would be a hieroglyp hic on canvas to a native of Cairo , Athens , or Beyrout . He would as £ " what sin those poor human figures had committed , for which they were buried in external darkness . The English have no such cause for wonder : they know what it is to be in darkness ; they know the value of a sunbeam sharp as a gimlet through a mass of clouds : if fo <* is a good teacher of colouring , they are in a capital school .
But I recollect that at the College Charlemagne , where we had the best masters in Paris , most of the pupils , instead of attending to the lesson , amused themselves by drawing des bonshommes . Yet England has colourists . If I said she had many , I should he like Mr Babxum . But she has some . Let us reckon on our fingers . Mr . Knight , Sir C . L . Eastlake , Mr . Poole , and Mr . Danbt . There are four clever English painters of genre , who paint with a brush and not with I oii <* ht perhaps to have mentioned Sir C . L . Eastlake first , since he is
the President of the Royal Academy of London ; but his " Spartan Isadas lies on my conscience . The noble President of the Hoyal Academy seems to have chosen that subject in order victoriously to prove that historical painting cannot take root in England . The " Svegliarma , ' the " Pilgrims , rind the "Flight of Francesco di Carrara , " are three warm and luminous paintings . One can see that the painter has brought back a little Italian , sun on his palette . The head of the Svegliarina , which recurs in both the other pictures , is verv remarkable . The two last-named subjects are tastefully composed ; the drawing is somewhat slack , but one cannot have
every-Of all the English colourists , Mr . Knight is the one whose painting most resembles ours . Certain parts of his picture of the " Wreckers ' a drama in three acts , rccal the manner of M . Dblacboix . The effect of the lett panel is especially admirable . The torch fastened to the horse s head throws out a sinister glare , and lights up horribly well the red smock-frock , bandy le « s and rascally countenance of the negro . The middle panel is less remarkable , both as to drawing and colouring ; but the other two can . bear comparison with the good pictures oi the trench Exhibition . Mr Ivmoht is a painter : Mr . Pooi . e is another . I have spoken ot his Job . I he « Queen of the Gipsies " and the « Crossing a Stream" are two pretty ideas clothed in vaj ? ue , misty colouring , and infinitely charming . The Evening Gun" bMr . Danbtis a simple and vigorous work . A
" , y , ^¦ ' ^ p . ' . J .-. ... _ i «» .. « , i :., r . no * - , ii < a . tpv nmi morose man-of-war , anchored in a foreign roadstead , in a flat , dreary , and morose country , fires a sun as nig ht sets in . Long clouds , part black and pait icd , Si' the horizon ; the ? land is hidden in a thick twilig ht throiigh which a fisherman ' s fire , burning on the shore , hardly shows itself . The * , hq > « motionless ; the large tumultuous machine enters on its rest ; the in . ists re deserted , no top-men are running among the yards , which are carrfull > tout out in a Wnught line ; tho gun . is tho last sign of life oftho whoJ ^ . Mr Damhy ' s picture breathes of sadness and solitude ; it leaves a melon
Ch ' ffi ^ bo rt uli I willingly add Mr . Hook ' s pretty ^ tureof ^ Venlooj . we Dream of It . " It is less a picture than the' ^ P ^ ^ ,, ^ the paintings connected by an arm and a rose . ll ^ dn ^ * ' . a ^ linst the colours joyous ; it is a cheerful work , an agreeable preservative a u Bpl SS ' cblo « ring finds so little favour in Knal ^ th * % ^ Z ^ tf foK aro tho pre-Kaphaelito painters , the cmet ot whom is n join h mid-twenty , Mr . Mim . ais . i ; iM-, raI mind , should give him-I regret that Mr . Mi . xais , a man of very h ^ £ , ' ualN 0 and forget self up to reactionary painting . Why * ecul "
August 18, 1855.] The Lea .De1. 799
August 18 , 1855 . ] THE LEA . DE 1 . 799
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 18, 1855, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18081855/page/19/
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