341 

 FINE ARTS, &c. 



THE British Institution has opened with almost unaccustomed 

 splendour, and Callcott and Landseer flourish in all their strength 

 and bloom. We were pleased and gratified with our visit. 



Mr. Major's last number is especially good indeed, we may add, 

 perfect. It is the cheapest of these monthly galleries, whether of 

 graces or beauties. 



Another part of the Illustrations of Modern Sculpture is just pub- 

 lished ; the Falconer, after Carew, is an able copy of a noble statue. 

 We were never pleased with Westmacott's Distressed Mother in the 

 Abbey it looks bad, and the engraving has not bettered it. 



In our next we will endeavour to do justice to many more works, 

 some of great merit. 



The Diorama has opened this season with two new views ; one the 

 Ruins of Fontain Abbey by Moonlight; the other, part of the Cathe- 

 dral of St. Denis. Both are pictures of considerable merit ; but, we 

 speak it with all tenderness, not equal to some of their predecessors. 



In the first place, there is a lack of interest, not local, but dramatic 

 interest in both. The recollections of our infancy has peopled the 

 Abbey with Robin Hood and the " Curtal Friar," with Scarlet and 

 Little John ; and their place is but ill supplied with the modern 

 star-gazer watching an eclipse of the moon. By-the-by, this said 

 eclipse savours mightily of quackery. We have never, indeed, even 

 amongst the best specimens of Vandermeer, seen a moonlight per- 

 fectly to our mind. They are all too ambitious of effect ; and if the 

 commonest scenes of nature defy the pencil, what can be expected 

 when the great revolutions of the heavens are made the subject of 

 pictorial representation ? We know not either for what end the doors 

 opening into artificial light are introduced, unless it be for the pur- 

 pose of breaking up the breadth of effect, and carrying the eye away 

 to the extremities of the picture instead of leading it to the principal 

 object, opposed to the first principles of art. 



The cathedral pleases us much more. The general effect is very 

 striking and true j but here we should have been more satisfied had 

 some groups of figures connected with its historical recollections been 

 introduced. Besides, what an opportunity of colour might it not 

 have afforded the painter. The want of something of this kind is not 

 made up by the introduction of the organ. But we fear much that 

 the time is come when the principles of good taste must give way to 

 extravagance and trick. 



We wish, too, the horizon had been placed lower, or the seats of the 

 spectators higher. As it is, the pavement is not so flat as it ought to 

 be. Perhaps we are hypercritical ; where there is so much to admire 

 we regret the more that there should be any thing to offend. 



