The Royal Academy

The Speaker, 5 May 1894, pages 499-500, 1,626 words

This year there are two good pictures in the Academy. I mean there are two pictures which are good not only where they hang, but which are good when judged by the highest standard that can be applied to contemporary art. The first is the "Portrait of a Lady," by Mr. W.Q. Orchardson, R.A.; the second is " Returning from Pasture," by Mr. Austin Brown.

Mr. Orchardson's portrait is a very beautiful drawing of a lady in white on a white background. I say drawing, not because Mr. Orchardson paints with an exceedingly reduced palette – the most beautiful colour is often very little more than brown and white – but because the intention of the painter in this picture seems to have been rather to draw than to paint. The head was looked at from the point of view of drawing. The lady's head – its contour and the shapes within the contour, the face, too, in the rhythmic setting of the features – were clearly full of drawing; and the painter was so wholly taken with the beautiful drawing of his model, his impulse was so clearly to draw rather than to paint, that I am forced to ignore the accident of the medium and to call his portrait a drawing. So carried away was he by the beautiful drawing of his model that the fashioning of the head and face seems a little too intentional. The desire to draw is too obvious; we can see him at work, we think with him; and so the drawing lacks the haunting mystery which is the charm and the immortality of the great masters. But how beautifully her arm hangs by her side! How well the character of the arm is expressed! It is a little wooden, perhaps: but how well she holds the white fan in her hand! I only dislike the white background. Why should the lady stand in front of a white sheet? But in a white sheet there would be atmosphere. There is none in this background; it is a coat of white paint.

Mr. Austin Brown's picture is the picture that it would be reasonable to buy – the picture that I can imagine a man of taste buying with a view to the decoration of his drawing-room or dining-room wall. A young girl drives three or four cows along a lane sheltered by tall green trees, admirably observed in their colour and value-relation to the blue-green sky. The cows are almost lost in shadow, but the white spots on the nearest cow carry the light into the darkest portion of the picture. And how true in value are these spots! The cows are moving; the picture has an atmosphere; the colour is sombre, deep, and harmonious; the drawing is strong, ample, and decisive. It lives in its frame. Colour, form, and atmosphere are there. In a word, it is a picture.

And having described what seems to me the two best pictures in the Academy, I will begin with the first room. In this room I saw a rather commonplace portrait by Mr. J. S. Sargent, A. The model seemed to me to have been seen by the most ordinary eyes in the world; the execution, so far as we can separate the execution from the conception, is accomplished and fluent enough. I saw a large landscape by Mr. J.C. Hook, R.A., "Seedtime." The colour of the landscape is rendered with great force; the character of the landscape is well observed, but not simply enough; the ground does not run out into two or three harmonious lines, but is heaped here and there somewhat incoherently. Still, we see what kind of countryside it is, and we admire the rich greens and the subdued red which the garments of the man and woman at work in the foreground introduce. Next the door there is a village street by M. Raphael Jones. The street is full of the pink and blue atmosphere of evening. Something has been felt, and, though the sensation has been but partially rendered, the picture is very good indeed among the hack landscapes which surround it.

This year I confess that Sir Frederic Leighton frankly bores me. His work is no worse than usual; it flows on very much as usual, very much as Mr. Swinburne's poems flow on – admirable metre signifying nothing. The same stanza about his mother, the sea, over and over again. The same draperies, the same nude leg, the same grace, the same nothingness. In this room the lady sits in canonical draperies in an arm-chair; in the next room we find her lying on a couch in strawberry-cream draperies; in the third room we find her seated on a mountain-top, examining the stars. I forget the colour of the drapery in this third instance – but it does not much matter, does it? In Room II. I saw a portrait by Mr. J.J. Shannon, and a picture, "The Eleventh Hour," by J.H. Lorimer. There is much that is excellent in this picture, but the light is so evenly distributed that there is no balance, no weight – it is all on the flat. Mystery and suggestion are indispensable, and when the intention is not purely decorative, when the subject is homely, mystery and suggestion can only be obtained by carefully composed effects of light and shade. The Dutchmen knew how to surround a dominant light with shadow, and so create une atmosphère de tableau. The lessons of the Dutchmen have long ago been forgotten. But one of these days modern artists will wake up to the fact that truth of effect leads nowhere. In Room III. there is a rather fine Watts – "For He Had Great Possessions." The movement of the figure, the gesture of head, are expressive of deep grief; the colour is interesting and harmonious. In these days talent and genius are short-lived, so it is pleasant to find at least one amongst us who paints at seventy-five as well as he did at fifty.

Mr. Swan's "Orpheus " is not a good picture, I am afraid. It is very well done, the dancing figure and the leopards rolling on the sward, but the picture is not interesting. I failed to discover any artistic idea in it. The colour is harmonious, but it did not delight me; the drawing of the figure is correct, but it did not touch me. At the end of this room the Hanging Committee has been playing a practical joke. It has hung large pictures by Mr. Edward J. Poynter, R.A., Mr. B. Leader, A., Mr. Briton Rivière, R.A., and Mr. Frederick Goodall, R.A., in a line. It would be impossible for anyone to say which of these four pictures was the worst.

In Room IV. Mr. Tuke's picture,"August Blue,'' attracted the attention of the critics. The sky and the ships in the distance are agreeable, but the figures of the naked boys who are plunging from the boat fail to interest. Each is separate; they are quite unrelated; no invention is displayed in the grouping, nor is any particular movement curiously or finely observed. I liked better "A Japanese Scroll," by F.E. Sherrard. The group of three girls is very happy and spontaneous in its composition; the colour is harmonious; altogether a charming picture.

Room V. is remarkable for one of the most vulgar pictures ever exhibited in a reputable exhibition. The Professor has fairly out-Herkomered Herkomer this year. "All Beautiful in Naked Purity" is his title. A life-size naked woman stands leaning on a tree in a red-hot Fred Walker landscape. To criticise the picture seriously would be impossible; suffice it to say that it seems to stand on the same artistic level as an ordinary theatrical poster – no better, no worse.

In Room VI. I noticed Mr. Waterhouse's portrait of Mrs. Charles Newton Robinson. It is free from the usual gaudy mannerism which spoils this painter's work. It is sincerely and unaffectedly painted; the painter was absorbed in his model, and forgot his tricks of style. The result is, if not a great work of art, at least a work which can be placed among the dozen best portraits in this year's Academy.

In Room VII. I did not notice any picture that seemed to call for comment. In Room VIII. hangs Mr. Austin Brown's picture, of which I have already spoken. Room IX. is another barren room. Stay, I am forgetting. In Room IX. there is a picture by Mr. George Clausen, "Turning the Plough." The movement of the horses turning, and the silhouette of the two horses against the sky, are strikingly picturesque; and the group that the two horses make with the stooping figure of the man who lifts the plough out of the furrow is admirable. Movement and silhouette are excellently well observed and rendered.

Last year Mr. George Harcourt exhibited a portrait which I remember praising in THE SPEAKER and the New Review. But learning that Mr. George Harcourt was a pupil of Professor Herkomer, I trembled for his future, and advised him to leave Bushey. I am afraid he did not take my advice. His picture, " Psyche, Farewell," is nearly but not quite so bad as his master's "All Beautiful in Naked Purity."

In Room X. there is a large picture, "Fiammetta's Song," by Mr. Edwin A. Abbey, and a small portrait of General Roberts on horseback, by Charles W. Furse. Both will repay the visitor's attention. He may like both, or he may like neither; but he will not arrive at a decision without some discussion and argument with himself. G.M.