Part 4 (1/2)

The hatred of artistic England for the Acadee that the Academy is no true centre of art, but a mere commercial enterprise protected and subventioned by Governuise has been cast off, and it has become patent to every one that the Academy is conducted on as purely commercial principles as any shop in the Tottenham Court Road For it is impossible to suppose that Mr Orchardson and Mr Watts do not know that Mr Leader's landscapes are like tea-trays, that Mr dicksee's figures are like bon-bon boxes, and that Mr Herkoars But apparently the RA's are merely concerned to follow the market, and they elect the men whose pictures sell best in the City City men buy the productions of Mr Herkomer, Mr dicksee, Mr Leader, and Mr Goodall Little harm would be done to art if thestockbrokers'

drawing-rooms with bad pictures, but the uncontrolled exercise of the stockbroker's taste in art means the election of a vast number of painters to the Academy, and election to the Acadens are meant to direct opinion

For when the ordinary visitor thinks a picture very bad, and finds RA or A after the painter's name, he concludes that he must be mistaken, and so a false standard of art is created in the public h Mr Orchardson, Sir John Millais, Sir Frederick Leighton, and Mr Watts have voted for the City merchants' nominees, it would be a mistake to suppose that they did not know for whom they should have voted It is to be questioned if there be an R A now alive ould dare to deny that Mr Whistler is a very great painter It was easy to say he was not in the old days when, under the protection of Mr Ruskin, the RAs went in a body and gave evidence against him But now even Mr Jones, RA, would not venture to repeat the opinion he expressed about one of the most beautiful of the nocturnes Time, it is true, has silenced the foolish mouth of the RA, but time has not otherwise altered him; and there is as little chance to-day as there enty years ago of Mr Whistler being elected an Academician

No difference exists even in Academic circles as to the merits of Mr

Albert Moore's work Many Acadee that his non-election is a very grave scandal; they will tell you that they have done everything to get hiiven up the task in despair Mr Whistler and Mr Albert Moore, the two greatest artists living in England, will never be elected Acaderave scandal, and also in many minor scandals: the election of Mr dicksee in place of Mr Henry Moore, and Mr Stanhope Forbes in place of Mr Swan or Mr John Sargent! No one thinks Mr dicksee as capable an artist as Mr Henry Moore, and no one thinks Mr Stanhope Forbes as great an artist as Mr

Swan or Mr Sargent Then ere they elected? Because the men who represent most emphatically the taste of the City have become so numerous of late years in the Acadeenius would throw a doubt on the co Mr Alma Tadema would not care to confer such aan art which, when understood, would involve hatred of the copyplate antiquity which he supplies to the public

This explanation seems incredible, I admit, but no other explanation is possible, for I repeat that the Acadeenius of the nore So we find the Acade on exactly the same lines as the individual RA, whose one ambition is to extend his connection, please his customers, and frustrate competition; and just as the capacity of the individual RA declines when the incentive is th, and its hold on the art instincts of the nation relaxes when its aim becomes merely mercenary enterprise

If Sir John Millais, Sir Frederick Leighton, Mr Orchardson, Mr Hook, and Mr Watts were to die tomorrow, their places could be filled bythe associates there is no na decline: Mr

Macbeth, Mr Leader, Mr David Murray, Mr Stanhope Forbes, Mr J

MacWhirter And are the co associates Mr Hacker, Mr Shannon, Mr

Solomon, Mr Alfred East, Mr Bramley? Mr Swan has been passed over soto seem doubtful For very sha their influence and insist on his election; but the City , and will not have hile inch further will it be possible to get theo Mr Mouat Loudan, Mr Lavery, Mr Mark Fisher, and Mr

Peppercorn have no chance soever Mr Mouat Loudan, was rejected this year Mr Lavery's charhters was still more shamefully treated; it was ”skied” Mr Mark Fisher,landscape-painter, had his picture refused; and Mr Reid, a man who has received medals in every capital in Europe, has had his principal picture hung just under the ceiling

On varnishi+ng-day Mr Reid challenged Mr dicksee to give a reason for this disgraceful hanging; he defied hiht the pictures underneath were better pictures; and it is as impossible for me as it was for Mr dicksee to deny that Mr Reid's picture is the best picture in Room 6 Mr Peppercorn, another well-known artist, had his picture rejected It is now hanging in the Goupil Galleries I do not put it forward as a masterpiece, but I do say that it deserved a place in any exhibition, and if I had a friend on the Hanging Committee I would ask him to point to the landscapes on the Academy walls which he considers better than Mr Peppercorn's

Often a reactionary says, ”Naood pictures that have been rejected; where can I see them? I want to see these enerally the best of the argument It is difficult to name the pictures that have been refused; they are the unknown quantity Moreover, the pictures that are usually refused are tentative efforts, and not mature work But this year the opponents of the Academy are able to cite some very substantial facts in support of their position, a portrait by ourportrait-painter and a landscape by the best landscape-painter alive in England having been rejected The picture of the farlish Art Club last autumn would not be out of place in the National Gallery I do not say that the rejected picture is as good--I have not seen the rejected picture--but I do say that Mr Fisher could not paint as badly as nine-tenths of the landscapes hanging in the Acade steadily; never was it lower than this year; next year a few fine works may crop up, but they will be accidents, and will not affect the general tendency of the exhibitions nor the direction in which the Acadeuidanceshi+p of the Acade navete and si enial optihton could not but allude to the disintegrating influence of French art True, in the second part of the sentence he assured his listeners that the danger was inary than real, and he hoped that ider knowledge, etc But if no danger need be apprehended, why did Sir Frederick trouble to raise the question? And if he apprehended danger and would save us frouereau to exhibit at the Academy?

The allusion in Sir Frederick's speech to French uereau in the Acadeuereau the chief exponent of the art which Sir Frederick ventures to suggestinfluence in our art?--has proven would be a more correct phrase Let him who doubts compare the work of almost any of the elder Academicians with the work of those who practise the square brushwork of the French school Compare, for instance, Sir Frederick's ”Garden of the Hesperides” with Mr Soloulf that separates the elder Academicians from the men already chosen and marked out for future Academicians And him whom this illustration does not convince I will ask to compare Mr Hacker's ”Annunciation” with any picture by Mr Frith, or Mr Faed, I will even go so far as to say with any work by Mr Sidney Cooper, an octogenarian, now nearer his ninetieth than his eightieth year

It would have been better if Sir Frederick had told the truth boldly at the Academy banquet He knows that a hundred years will hardly suffice to repair the , this , built up syste of the artist's sensibility may enter Sir Frederick hinted the truth, and I do not think it will displease him that I should say boldly what he was h position he occupies did not allow hio further than he did; the society of which he is president is now irreparably colo-French art, and has, by every recent election, bound itself to uphold and in art upon the nation

Out of the vast array of portraits and subject-pictures painted in various styles and illustrating every degree of ignorance, stupidity, and false education, one thing really comes home to the careful observer, and that is, the steady obliteration of all English feeling and ed of all nationality England lingers in the elder painters, and though the representation is often inadequate, the English pictures are pleasanter than the mechanical art which has spread froress all artistic expression of racial instincts and , for instance, can be more primitive, more infantile in execution, than Mr Leslie's ”Rose Queen” But it seems to me superficial criticisests a pleasant scene, a stairway full of girls in white irls dressed in white muslin? And Mr Leslie spares us the boredom of odious and sterile French pedantry

Mr Waterhouse's picture of ”Circe Poisoning the Sea” is an excellent exa is planned out geo is built up mechanically The brush, filled with thick paint, works like a trowel In the hands of the Dutch and Flemish artists the brush was in direct coing from the broadest and most e to the nature of the work But here all is square and heavy The colour schereen water--how theatrical, how its richness reeks of the French studio! How cosmopolitan and pedantic is this would-be romantic work!

But can we credit Mr dicksee with any artistic intention in the picture he calls ”Leila”, hanging in the next rooht that having painted what the critics would call ”somewhat sad subjects” last year, it would be well if he painted soirl in a harem struck hiave her a pretty face, a pretty dress, and posed her in a graceful attitude A nice bright criht leave bare, and it would be well to draw them from the plaster cast--a pair of pretty feet would be sure to find favour with the populace It is impossible to believe that Mr dicksee was ht or impression when he painted this picture The execution is not quite so childlike and bland as Mr Leslie's; it is heavier and y One is a cane chair fro-room chair from the Tottenham Court Road

In neither does any trace of French influence appear, and both painters are City-elected Acadeht Leader, Fildes, David Murray, Peter Graham, Herkomer Then it is not the City that favours the French school, but the Academy itself! And this shoidely tastes ood taste I believe the north and the south poles are equidistant frohton's picture, entitled ”At the Fountain”, I aarded as mere execution, it is quite as intolerably bad as Mr dicksee's ”Leila” And yet it is not so bad a picture, because Sir Frederick's her and better-educated mind than Mr dicksee's; and therefore, however his hand ht which always, even orn and frayed, preserves so up its Dead” is an unpleasant elo But in ”The Garden of the Hesperides” Sir Frederick is hi but himself And the picture is so incontestably the work of an artist that I cannot bring s Theand original Theround their tree On the right there is an olive, in the middle the usual strawberry-cream, and on the left a purple drapery The broater in the foreground balances the white sky most happily, and the faces of the women recall our best recollections of Sir Frederick's work In the next room--Room 3--Mr Watts exhibits a very incoherent work entitled ”She shall be called Woreed--painters'

critics and the general public--is the very great talent of Mr G F

Watts Even the Chelsea studios unite in praising him But e ever sincere in our praise of hias, Whistler, and Manet? And lately have we not begun to suspect our praise to-day is ato youthful ade and aestheticisms? Perhaps the time has come to say e do really think of Mr Watts We think that his very earliest pictures show, occasionally, the hand of a painter; but for the last thirty years Mr Watts see transformation, and we see him now as a sort of cross between an alche a the pages of a dusty folio in search of texts for illustration; a sort of a e him by what he exhibits this year would not be just We will select for criticism the celebrated portrait of Mrs Percy Wyndham--in which he has obviously tried to realise all his artistic ideals

The first thing that strikeson this picture is the too obvious intention of the painter to invent so down to paint this picture the painter's mind seems to have been disturbed with all sorts of undeter the eternal Beautiful, and the formula discovered by the Venetian for its coave us the eternal Beautiful as civilisation presents it Why not select in modern life all that corresponds to the Venetian formulae; why not profit by their experience in the selection I aine the painter's desire, and certainly the picture is froround for the head, and a large flower-vase is in the right-hand corner, and a balustrade is on the right; and this Anglo-Venetian lady is attired in a rich robe, broith green shades, and heavily embroidered; her elbow is leaned on a pedestal in a manner that shows off the plenitudes of the forearnity the hand is raised to the face It is a noble portrait, and tells the story of a lifelong devotion to art, and yet it is difficult to escape from the suspicion that we are not very much interested, and that we find its co the fashi+on of his day Mr Watts see out every accent thatto a particular epoch does not save it froreat artists annihilated the whim of temporary taste, and made the hoops of old time beautiful, however slim the season's fashi+ons To be of all ti of his own time; and if he would find the eternal type he must seek it in his own parish

The painters of old Venice were entirely concerned with _l'idee plastique_, but on this point the art of Mr Watts is a repudiation of the art of hiswhile a constant source of pollution in his work Here, even in his treatment of the complexion, he seems to have been impelled by some abstract conception rather than by a pictorial sense of harmony and contrast, and partly for this reason his synthesis is not beautiful, like the conventional silver-grey which Velasquez used so often, or the gold-brown skins of titian's wo that ugly shadohich ed with the joy of purely material creation; had he been he could not have rested satisfied with so ugly a statement of a beautiful fact And the forehead, too, where it coht, where it turns into shadow; the cheek, too, with its jawbone, and the evasiveunder and below the eyes, are su , so illusive, apparent only in the result, hich titian would have achieved that face Manet, an incoht have failed to join the planes, and in his frankness left out what he had not sufficiently observed; but he would have compensated us with a beautiful tone

For an illustration of Mr Watts' draill take the picture of ”Love and Death”, perhaps the ns The enorht arm raised to force the door which a terrified Love would keep closed against hirey, the colour that Mr Watts is es best But the upper portion of the figure is vast, and the construction beneath the robe too little understood for it not to lack interest; and in the raised arainst the door, where power and delicacy of line were indispensable for the pictorial beauty of the picture, we are vouchsafed no h stateainst the door, his right ar advanced in action of resistance to the intruder The ret that so suht sufficient expression Any one who has ever held a pencil in a school of art kno a young body, from armpit to ankle-bone, floith lovely line Any one who has been to the Louvre knows the passion hich Ingres would follow this line, si it closer until it surpassed all melody But in Mr Watts' picture the boy's natural beauty is lost in a coarse and rough planing out that tells of an eye that saw vaguely and that wearied, and in an execution full of uncertain touch and painful effort Unless the painter is especially endoith the instinct of anatomies, the sentiment of proportion, and a passion for form, the nude is a will-o'-the-wisp, whose way leads where he may not follow No one suspects Mr Watts of one of these qualifications; he appears even to think theorical seems to be merely motived by an unfortunate desire to philosophise

As a colourist Mr Watts is held in high esteem, and it is as a colourist that his admirers consider his claies of colour are frequently to be met with in his work, and yet it would be difficult to say what colour except grey he has shown any ly reduced palette, like Chardin, and yet be an exquisite colourist To colour well does not consist in the e the doh the shadows as well as the half-tints, and Chardin's grey we find everywhere, in the bloom of a peach as well as in a decanter of rich wine; and how tender and persuasive it is! Mr Watts' grey would see beside it Reds and blues and yellows do not disappear from Mr Watts' palette as they do from Rembrandt's; they are there, but they are usually so dirtied that they appear like a monochrome