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Fine Arts' Exhibitions. 



will be graced by the productions of Law- 

 rence. We are anxious therefore to tell the 

 truth at the outset. We are convinced, from 

 the pictures we have just seen (we knew it 

 before, but we feel it with a deeper certainty 

 now), that the loss of this extraordinary man 

 is an irreparable one. Nor can we entertain 

 any strong hope that this loss will be alle- 

 viated by the appointment to the presi- 

 dentship of a person, who, likeMr. Shee, aims 

 at the artificial instead of the natural, sneers 

 at some of the grandest works of antiquity, 

 and thinks the Elgin Marbles an imposture. 

 There is but too much reason to fear that 

 the sound views of art which characterized 

 Sir Thomas Lawrence, that grand principle 

 which led him to encourage whatever was 

 pure and exalted in art, and that fine taste 

 that invariably directed him in the search of 

 it will have little influence in the future 

 government of the academy. But we hate pre- 

 dictions, particularly when they are gloomy ; 

 and we earnestly hope that Mr. Shee and the 

 rest of the R.A.'s will disappoint us. 



We will now offer a remark or two upon 

 some of the pictures, taking the names as 

 they stand in the catalogue, and commencing 

 with 



PHILLIPS. This artist, who is at the 

 head of the "usual excellence" school, should 

 never paint below the third button-hole. His 

 heads are remarkable for broad handling, 

 and occasionally for simplicity and purity of 

 colour ; but he seems to scorn the nicer arts 

 by which Lawrence attained his peculiar de- 

 licacy of expression. This is more especially 

 evident in his female figures, which are 

 almost invariably coarse, vulgar, and over- 

 charged. They have no refinement of feel- 

 ing they are mere faces without the poetry 

 of spirit. His Nos. 1 and 36 are both good; 

 but the full length No. 104, is stiff and 

 studied. Every thing is so nice and new, 

 that the gentleman seems as if he had been 

 sitting to Mr. Stultz as well as Mr. Phillips. 



TURNER seems resolved to puzzle both 

 artist and amateur ; but we must admit that 

 he seldom fails to astonish. This he effects 

 by a daring, that if it far oversteps the mo- 

 desty of nature, succeeds in the extravagant ; 

 and atones by a dazzling and voluptuous glare 

 for the want of the purer light of simplicity 

 and truth. His landscapes are too much 

 like " Lalla Rookh" to be perpetually pleas- 

 ing our love " falls asleep o'er their same- 

 ness of splendour." Yet they seem creations 

 of the very genius of colour " Palestrina" 

 and " Calais sands," in the present exhibi- 

 tion, are examples. With regard to his pic- 

 ture of " Jessica," it may be called a bril- 

 liant blunder; for that something was meant 

 we are willing to believe. The artist had 

 no doubt some sublime intention or other, 

 though he has forgotten what it was. There 

 is a report abroad, to be sure, that it is the 

 production of a young lady of thirteen, and 

 that it was painted at a boarding-school at 

 Clapham. Turner having an eye for yellow - 

 ocre, was struck by the promise that it held 



forth ; and it being a fashion of the day for 

 great men to lend their names to the pro- 

 ductions of other people, he offered to place it 

 in the academy as his own and there it ac- 

 cordingly is, to the utter annihilation of a 

 beautiful picture of Boxall's hung imme- 

 diately over it. " Pilate washing his hands" 

 is as a composition almost ludicrous. It is 

 a mere sketch which should have been kept 

 in his studio ; and not have been suffered, 

 from vanity or avarice, to have been the 

 means of excluding better pictures and of 

 destroying the effect of every thing around it. 

 If Mr. Turner supposes that the public can 

 be interested about such eccentricities, he in- 

 sults them. Sir Walter Scott might as well 

 publish his washing-bills embellished with 

 engravings. 



CONSTABLE almost justifies Fuseli's cele- 

 brated desire for an umbrella, when he was 

 looking at one of this artist's landscapes ; 

 they are always wet, always smiling through 

 a shower. He may be called the father of 

 the umbrella-school of painting. In No. 19, 

 a Dell-scene, there is a fine freshness of 

 green, and a great deal of brilliant but not 

 natural colour. 



BRIGGS is not, we fear, advancing so fast 

 as might be wished. In his " Ines De Castro," 

 No. 20, which is in many respects exceed- 

 ingly clever, there is a sad want of taste in 

 the colour and costume. It looks like a 

 picture pain ted for a green-room : his genius, 

 like Stanfield's, may be said to have been 

 nurtured in a theatre. His pictures are only 

 stage-representations of history, or nature at 

 -second-hand. 



ETTY'S mind appears so steeped in his 

 recollections of the old Italian masters, and 

 so wedded to the academy models, that his 

 exquisite taste for colour becomes clogged by 

 mechanical routine. We are rejoiced how- 

 ever to see that he adheres to large pictures ; 

 and we are glad that the Edinburgh Academy 

 of painting, for whom his "Judith" in 

 the present exhibition was painted, has had 

 spirit enough to encourage such a style. This 

 is the only picture in the collection that 

 evinces a devoted feeling for historic art on 

 a large scale : it is a noble production. It 

 has been objected, that the head of the prin- 

 cipal figure is turned away; but Etty, it 

 must be recollected,cultivates what SirJoshua 

 Reynolds called the ornamental style ; and 

 he cares less therefore about the delicacies of 

 expression, than picturesque attitude and 

 splendid colouring. The Storm, No. 37, is 

 admirable ; a sublimity of effect is produced 

 by the simplest means, the figures are 

 exquisitely painted, and their expressions 

 convey at once an entire history of the scene. 

 The Dancer, 380, is a fine study for colour; 

 and a still finer one will be found in the fe- 

 male figure in " Gyges exhibiting his wife 

 to his friend." This subject has been se- 

 lected for the opportunity of painting the 

 principal figure; but the story is strangely 

 told, and all the figures, we think, are some- 

 what out of drawing. 



