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    drawing . Mr . Goodam * does not draw his figures , he only sketches them . His " Ball for the Benefit of the Widow " is a pretty composition , tolerably col oured but feebly drawn . That stamp of individuality which drawing alone can give is wantiag 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 comp osition clever , and the public cares little for merit of execution . I can say without flattery that one might spend a very pleasant day among the tableaux de genre which England has sent us , and which form its best contribution . They are works of good taste without any pretension to o-enius , finished with praiseworthy care , and never deficient in cleverness . Air . HoKSiiBx ' a " Faithful Friend" is a marvellously-drawn large dog allowing himself to be caressed by a little girl . The child is one of those fragile

    creatureB which the English know so well how to rear . The head is truthful and lifelike ; unfortunately the hand is out of proportion . Mr . Phillips ' s " Fublic 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 vrith the attention due to their position . The " First Meeting of Peter the Great and Catherine , " b y 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 Wadman" 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 . Froni the way in which he is advancing pour soitfller dans Vozil 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 his position is a far , far better one than that of Pope before the pitiless Lady Montague .

    Mr . Fhith ' 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 Slvigne of England , the woman who first gave us exact notions of the East , the benefactress of Europe , who brought us inoculation . Mr . Fjuth has given us nothing more than a tall , handsome woman , showing her teeth and her wit . Sir E . Lajnj > skkb ' 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 hut 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 defy 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 . My parents made me so small that I mig ht not be expensive to feed . " The large watchdog is a lady qui a en des malheurs ; her head should be tied up in an old cotton handkerchief . She does not askshe 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 beast , idle , a glutton , and a buffoon ; he is doing the grand , and trying to mollify the gendarme by some immense joke . The mastifl " , who conies next , seems to be taking the measure of the faithful Jack ; he sees that there is something to be done ; he feels strong , and knows by experience that nothing venture , nothing have : " lie 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 life of dogs , called " Breakfast . " These compositions , too amusing for pictures , are excellent for vignettes ; and Sir E . Lakbskeb is the English painter who has been oftenest and best engraved . We have all admired the engraving called "The Sanctuary . " That large stag standing in the midst of a pool , motionless , listening with outstretched curs to the distant sounds of the chase , whilst a flock -of scared wild-fowl flies away behind him , is one of the simplest 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 seems n 8 if the brush had struggled unsuccessfully against the engraver .

    Yet Sir E . Landseer . works out his ideas with a perfectly marvellous power of execution . The horses nt the farrier's and the tethered ram are by a master ' s hand . But the . slightly exaggerated precision o £ the drawing , the rawness of the colouring , a something hard in the manner , and , above all , the perfect absence of naivete , give to this style of painting less charm than merit , and it amuses the eye without satisfying tho taste . Have you noticed two small monkeys gnawing a pineapple ? That picture is worth 50 , 000 francs . ' One of the most curious pictures , because it shows the labours of a clever wan in pursuit of fancy , is "The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania , " by a Scotch painter , Mr . J . W . Paton . Shakspeabk , in a fairy piece which is a pendant to the Tempest , has introduced Oberon , King of the Fairies , and his wife Titimiii , into tho city of Athena , in the midst of tho heroic times . Oberon suspects his wife of taking too great an interest in Theseus ; Titania accuses her husband of looking too admiringly at the amiizon Hippolytu , mother of the chaste hero of our acquaintance . Tho two sovereigns of tho invisible world quarrel in a bourgeois way in tho midst of their winged court . Mr . Paton haa endeavoured to represent on canvas these small ,

    mysterious , blooming , very naked , and tolerably silly people , which came all sparkling and airy out of Shakspeabe ' s imagmation . Hie picture is the work of a draughtsman who has done his best . Oberon in green ti « 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 natnralibus will run away crying For slutme ! 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 .

    Round the principal group the artist has laboriousl y assembled an . innumerable crew of comical little beings : pot-bellied dwarfs , nimble demons , grotesque poussaJis , Will-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 ridino- < sn a butterfly , another on a snail , this one at war with a spider , that one ' gravelyoccupied 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 Shaxspeare ' 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 neighbours 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 , light 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 . Ifc was under the salt mists of Venice , and the heavy sky of Holland , that the beauty o £ the contrasts of lig ht and shade were first suspected . A picture by Rembbasbt would be a hieroglyphic on canvas to a native of Cairo , Athens , or Beyrout He would ask 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 lie like Mr . Baiisum . But she has some . Let us reckon on our fingers . Mr . Kxkiit , Sir C . L . Eastlake , Mr . Poole , and Mr . Danbtt . There are four clever English painters of genre , who paint with a brush and not with I ou'rht perhaps to have mentioned Sir C . L . Eastlake first , since be is but his Isadas

    the President of the Royal Academy of London ; " Spartan " lies on my conscience . The noble President of the Royal Academy seems to have chosen that subject in order victoriously to prove that historical paintinc cannot take root in England . The " Svegliarina , " the " Pilgrims , " and 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 recura in boih the other pictures , is very remarkable The two last-named subjects are tastefully composed 5 the drawing is somewhat slack , but one cannot have

    everything at once . . . . 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 nets , recal the manner of M . JDelackoix . The effect of the left panel is especially admirable . The torch fastened to the horse ' 3 head throws out a sinister glare , mid lights up horribly well the red smock-frock , bandy le < rS and rascally countenance of the negro . The middle panel is less rennirkable , both as to drawing and colouring ; but the other two can bear comparison with the good pictures of the French Exhibition . Mr . Ivnigut is a painter ; Air . Poole is another . I have spoken of his Job . lne " Queen of the Gipsies" and the "Crossing a Stream" are two pretty ideas clothed in vague , mistv colouring , and infinitely charming . le and work

    " The Evening Gun , " by Mr . Danuv , is a simp vigorous . A man-of-war , anchored in a foreign roadstead , in a flat , dreary , and morose country , " ™ s a gun . as night sets in . Long clouds , part black and part red , reacfrto the horizon ; the land is hidden in a thick twilight , through which a fisherman ' s firff , burning on the shore , hardly shows itself . lhe ship is motionless ; the large tumultuous machine enters on its rest ; the niiisia are deserted , no top-men are running among the yards , which arc caret ully laiu out in a straight line ; the gun is tho lust sign of life of the whole crew . Mr . Danuy ' s " p icture breathes of sadness and solitude ; it leaves a melancholy 011 tho mind . . c v . q To this short list I willingly add Mr . Hook's pretty picture of Vo ice as we Dream of It . " It is loss a picture limn the suj > orp «> silioii ol to painting , connected by an arm and a rose . The draperies are eI ogu » , the colours joyous ; it is u cheerful work , an agreeable preservative « £ *»»*

    81 ^" colouring finds ao little favour in Eng land , that the : luug * . of tho day arc the pro-Kuplmolito painters , the chief of whom is a young man 01 and-twenty , Mr . Millais . himthI inimli should give him-I regret that Mr . Millais , a man of voiy hbc «< il nun ^ ^ self up to reactionary painting . « « y return

    Untitled Article

    August 18 , 1855 . ] THE LEADER , 799

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 18, 1855, page 799, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2102/page/19/