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August 27, 1853;] THE LEADER. S87
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THE OPERA SEASON. (Retrospect—befobe Bee...
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LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN 1853. : It is not ...
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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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; The Ballad Of The King's Daughter. Par...
Of his rippUng smiles , they heard her say , With a haughty glance at her marriage-ring , " Well is my home by the forester ' s hearth , But Walter , my son , is the heir of a king . " When the shadows fell on our quiet pool , . And the birds were asleep in the firs overhead , She return'd alone , but her face was white , Who had given her Living in place of her Dead . B .
August 27, 1853;] The Leader. S87
August 27 , 1853 ;] THE LEADER . S 87
€Fo Irte.
€ fo Irte .
The Opera Season. (Retrospect—Befobe Bee...
THE OPERA SEASON . ( Retrospect—befobe Beeakfast . ) The morning dew is not yet dry upon my feet , the soft rolling clouds of lazy mist , which I left drowsily recumbent on the far-stretching iiplands , are still there in spite of the bright sun , the keen and eager birds are twittering , and the bee is busy out of doors , yet I come in to find a somnolent , and a silent house , giving the vaguest possible intimation of breakfast ! To fill the painful pause I will do a bit of duty , and take a retrospect of the Opera Season ; if I am unusually savage , let some of that fierceness be credited to my Hunger . Why write when hungry ? some unwise questioner will suggest . As well suggest , Why be hungry ? It all comes of early rising ! Early rising is a virtue greatly esteemed in books , and very necessary Early rising is a virtue greatly esteemed m books , and very necessary
—" for others . " It is not a virtue which distinguishes me . I am aware that the " early bird gets the worm ; " but I am not immoderately fond of worms . Are you ? I want some keener motive to make early rising a practice . Not that the charms of dawn , such as they are , find in me an inappreciative observer . There is a positive fascination in the freshness and quiet , smiling gaiety of dawn ; the silence is brought into delightful distinctness by the sharpness of the few sounds which start out of it—the cawing of the distant rook , the crisp energy of the little birds , the bark of a dog , or the lowing of cattle . There is a magical influence in the air . The novelty of the sensation makes it delicious . But to enjoy early rising you must rise late ; then you have the full , keen appetite for the newness of sensation which makes enjoyment healthy . You must not make early rising a debauch !~ Use it with rare and exquisite moderation .
One comes into the country a languid invalid in search of vigour and ruddy health ; from the hot dissipation and gaseous irregularities of a London season , one passes into the generous influence of pure air , copious meals , early hours , and the not deliriously exciting conversation of the agricultural mind : the metamorphosis is complete . A day is sufficient to convince you of the poet ' s
truth" God made the country , man the town , ( But who made the " parties" one meets at parties in the country ?)—and feeling fanatically virtuous you begin with a convert ' s energy to do all that Virtue demands—you rise at unheard-of hours ! I once declared I couldn ' t get up at eight o ' clock , not even to be hanged ; but illness greatly tames a man , making him meek and respectable ; it tamed me , and lo ! the result .
However if I continue this desultory , and not strictly pertinent , conversation much longer , the breakfast-bell will throb its welcome pulses , and my retrospect will not be written ; for after Breakfast a lounging , lazy indifference to duty , and an alacrity at taking up anything except a pen , characteristic of that period , will assuredly step between me and you , dear reader ! The Opera season of 1853 haa been distinguished by a dreariness never Known before ; of all the flat seasons it has been the flattest—yet would it l
) e difficult to say why . It has certainly boen mismanaged ; but when is ^ not mismanaged P The fault cannot wholly lie there . There has been "o enthusiasm ; it lias formed but a faint topicof drawing-room conversation . Of tho three novelties , Benvenuto Cellini , Jcssonda , and liigoletto , one ¦ 'Uled , one didn't succeed , and the other produced no impression , MeniH'hulo Cellini was a mistake , the mistake- of a man of genius . Jessonda J'us lovel y writing , but is not dramatic ; I can compare it to nothing but tV misco painted in tho style of a miniature . Hic / olello suffers from tho P ' mudico against Verdi , but if Mademoisolle Bosio had any passion in her , ¦
K > opora would hold its place among tho second-rate works of tho modern -a . U tut school . The only real success of the season , in the shape of novelty , jvu . s \ Guillaume Tell , wliich was heard for the first time here when Tam-H . ln Ban ^ - Arnol ( l ¦ tuafc lvax singing ! Of tho music I dare not trust my-( t to Hpeak , any admiration is so overflowing . For indeed my idea of a ^ 'an <( opera is one in whicli the music is grand , and , if I may be allowed ( li < " n ° ' ' ! tntl ' i ° . al- - ' o K <; vm ' » i audience during four hours with a pro-1 ) ' !! I ° * n . ' ' ary bands , organs , cannon , musketry , church-bells , and ofl U 1 . > w ' n ( ' trampling of horses , the clung of cymbals , the booming ^> ml ) onen , the tumult of mobs , with processions of cardinals , emperors , ^ isobearers lcat k ith tho noise of iesthe
( - - , troops , s . < u- « , mons , nuns , w org , lt-il ' . ' ' . ° ^ '" . OX ( U ; ut ' OllH » ' no storming of fortreaseH , and the burning of uil iT ''" ' ' ^' ' " ° T ^ lliraHS tho ear , distract the mind with these , and iho grandeurs of grand opera , in really not tho mipremo end of Art , as I jin ! C 1 V 0 l (( ' ^ ** y ° wore , aa an American . would nay , to boil down to eH . senco the whole repertoire of grand operas , you would not produce a << >» M «< , » , e Tell , much Jobs a JTUUMo ! Med ¦ HI /' IK < 5 rH wl " Umy Oll ° Hliy ? Tno "OveltioH have been —Madamo Mn I " ' ' m < Inmuil ' <; » ' » K « r , heard only twice , in spite of her huccchh ; ( t amo ledesco , a " voice , " and that iH \ all , but a uoblo voice ; Signer ^ ' ' <>«' , h ]) uddmg-faced 6- / v , -m ^ tenor of dismal incapacity ; " and Mile , a Mm a a n afc Bin K " ' ( l ( 1 (; i < lt ' ( lly useful and improvable . Thero was alno Waul i ¦ ' ' ° wh () 1 U llotl "" K ™ \ l > " wiiJ . Grini wan in splendid him hi UIM Ai- V U ( lt ! llful VOU ! 0 ' «<>« aidorinff the wear and tear that voico " « u . iVLurvoUoiw woman ! eho , and Bhc alouo , haw lmd tho power to
attract large audiences this season ; and certainly her Lucrezia and her Norma are things one can never hope to see again . Mario has had a few glorious moments , but , on the whole , his voice has been more uncertain this year than ever it was . Tamberlik had an immense triumph ilx Ouilldume ¦ Tell , but in Le JProphete he disappointed his admirterS . Throughout the season , however , he has been of rare service . Kondoni —what can be said of the greatest " artist" on the stage ? Nothing biit that he is the greatest , and has been equal to his own great powers . ViviAK . ;
Landscape Painting In 1853. : It Is Not ...
LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN 1853 . : It is not many years since a careless public was betrayed , with reference to Art , into a terribly false position . It had been assumed b y certain authorities that painting on a large scale , and on subjects either classical or sacred , were alone worthy to be considered examples of High Art . Finding that the assumption was very quietly swallowed , these authorities did not rest until they had shown how vilely the public had behaved to High Art ; and so the public , good-naturedly and obligingly horrified , submitted for a long time to the imputation , and to the scoldings of neglected egotism , which it all the while continued to neglect . And the public might , to this day , have borne the imputation and the scoldings both , with British patience under insult , when the subject is only one about which Britons are at times vaguely enthusiastic ; but at length one
or two voices of the crowd spoke up , and said , " We are aweary , aweary ; good sirs , why all this talk about indifference to High Art ? Is not the highest Art that which best suits the time , being called forth by the highest intellectual requirements of the time , such as they may be ? You have no right to bid us worship ( at a shilling a-head ) the Work of your hands , and to call us infidel because we wont . "The great want of the age , " forsooth , ¦ " is a want of faith " - —in you ! Pooh ! Your pictures remind us only of the " life-school , " ( in the narrowest professional sense , by the bye , ) and of the property-room and the wardrobe shop ; but we say that is no fault of ours . According to the standard you please to assume as the only worthy aim of Art , we may be unable to deny the accuracy of your pictures ; but we prefer pictures which we can feel to be true . "
This was substantially the protest uttered by men accustomed to take . a light and superficial view ( not to speak it offensively ) , but it was in the main a just protest . We know that the highest kind of genius is not and cannot be immediately popular . Misapprehension : must , at first , be expected by those who have to strike the key-note of their own fame . It is , somewhere observes Hobcrt Browning , precisely the misapprehensiveness of his age , that a poet is sent to remedy . And he argues , in words which we repeat as nearly as we can recollect them , that the interval between the poet ' s operation and the generally perceptible effect is not excessive ; that it is
even less than in other phases of the great human energy ; as , for instance , the astronomer ' s , whose " JSpur si inuove" he asserts to be as bitter a sentence as the poet has a right to utter , " in that depth of conviction which is so like despair . " But with respect to tbe size of pictures , or the particular character of their subjects and treatment , it is ludicrous to imagine any depth of ¦ conviction at all ; and the possibility of growing savage and scornful on the point cannot well occur , except in the case of some fretful old gentleman with one idea , who is exceedingly fair gamo for the fun of our good friends , the light and superficial observers before mentioned . y
Again , though tho " popular tost" will never be a perfect test either of Art or Poetry , " the space will continue to be lessened between the work and its effect , as it has been lessened so incalculably that the very nature of the difference has ohanged . Wo believe that a disregard of popular feeling is not now excusable , though it was once necessary , in the operation of Art . To familiarise beauty is no longer to run the risk of vulgarizing it . The endeavour of Art has at all times been to revive , in their noblest significance , the instincts of humanity . If tho greatest amount of living truth and beauty , the highest Art , is to be found almost wholly in landscape painting , the reason may bo that life itself has taken that direction ! . Otherwise ., if we bad more natural life in our towns , landscape would properly form only tho background of Art , as it does in the works of Millais , and a few other exceptional painters , in his school and out of it .
When , therefore , we assert the excellence of landscape ; art , which at each of tho summer exhibitions now closed or closing , seemed to us to carry away tho palm from other departments of painting , it i . s with duo regard to the aims of Art , which we need not say include higher life and beauty than those of the lilies of the field . But at present the landscapepainter has most work in hand , to bring back life among uh " exiles from , Naturo ; " and we find the result accordingly in the almost recent perfection of his powers . Comparisons of " established" painters with men of yesterday will show thin result in a direct and very striking manner ; as any one may hoc at the British Artists' Gallery , in Sud'olk-stivel ., where the exhibition of Art Union prizes has recently opened . It wan generally acknowledged that JjCo made a better show of landscapes at the . ttoyal
Academy this summer than ho has done for Homo yesirs pant . We , who do not join in the loud praise of this artist , were yet among those who remarked on bin groat hucoohh this Benson . I < i-om his nix or hovcii landscapes , a fortunate holder of an Art Union prize of a hundred and fifty guineas him selected perhaps the very best . It hangs , now , on the lo / t us you ontor the gallery , and a , yard or two from fho door . A littlo further on , alon £ the name wall , is an admirable picture by Boddington , called a " Weedy Brunch of tho Thames . " it in considerably larger than Lee ' s work , Jiiid we are afraid to nay liow much better . Its ' price in eighty pounds ; , BjO $ ( lington ' H fame being of more recent growth than . Loo ' h , who is , moreover , an . it . A . i ... ' , ]¦ „) We may outer on a , closer comparison of these two works , witWut losing night for an instant ; of our main subject . On the contrary ,, Vo hope to gain one or two useful illuat ralionH by tho way . ^ Lee , m , tbi » iuHtancc , us much an over , scorns to cull for that very unto praise wlucili
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27081853/page/21/
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