114 THIRTEENTH EXHIBITION OF PICTURES 



modern costume, both in cut and colour ; so that the 

 bold flowing outline, graceful disposition, and breadth 

 of light and shade, presented by Roman, Greek and 

 other similar drapery, were quite unavailable: he 

 was also obliged to give with each figure a portrait, so 

 that, of necessity, a considerable portion of the face 

 had to be exposed, preventing the artist from display- 

 ing varied views of the head ; these two difficulties 

 are, in themselves, sufficient without even considering 

 such as are invariably attendant on every historical 

 picture ; nevertheless, as a whole, Mr. Ball's produc- 

 tion has very high merit, and is free from that 

 extreme floridness, which is the prevalent vice of the 

 present day ; many artists have an idea that pictures 

 ought to be more highly coloured than is natural, in 

 order to allow for the mellowing of age, but this is too 

 frequently carried to an excess. Sir Joshua Reynolds 

 who has often and, we think, erroneously been accused 

 of chemical quackery in the preparation of his colours, 

 on being asked by Northcote, why he did not use ver- 

 milion instead of fleeting lake, in his flesh, answered — 

 " when I see the vermilion hue in nature then I shall 

 adopt it, but not till then." Sir Joshua's pictures have 

 now stood the test of years and they still present to us 

 the lovely, graceful, dignified and intellectual life. 



The back ground of Mr. Ball's picture is good in 

 colour, and well calculated to relieve the figures, his 

 likenesses are striking, and so associated with indivi- 

 dual character that they cannot be mistaken ; he has 

 also one peculiar merit which places him immeasurably 

 above the generality of portrait painters, which is, his 

 power of giving a high intellectual feeling and exalted 

 sentiment to his heads ; — but this artist's fair fame and 

 splendid talent will not suffer by our observing that, 

 in our opinion, his lights appear a little too chalky — 

 so as to give an undue depth to his shadows and half 

 tints ; we also apprehend that his shadows, in the face, 

 are sometimes such as would be produced by acciden- 

 tal rather than general causes — we know from Mr. 

 Ball's works that he has studied nature with care and 



