1829.] 



C 107 D 



FINE ARTS' EXHIBITIONS. 



SiKCE our last, the British Institution 

 has closed its exhibition of the works of living 

 artists, and opened one of those unrivalled 

 selections from the labours of the old masters, 

 which have done more towards the spread 

 araonji; us of a true taste for Art, and a deep 

 and active feeling for its beauties, than any 

 other expedient that has been resorted to 

 within our memory. 



The present collection is "of a miscella- 

 neous nature, and is perhaps not inferior to 

 any one that has preceded it, in variety of 

 subject, and unsurpassed skill of execution. 

 To those who have seen and examined 

 this beautiful assemblage of pictures, we 

 despair of giving any notice of it which shall 

 satisfactorily recal any one of the leading 

 works, much less so describe and estimate 

 them as to meet and reply to the feelings 

 and impressions which the sight of them 

 must have produced. But we shall allude 

 to some of them in detail nevertheless, no 

 less to gratify the curiosity of our distant 

 readers, than to urge those who are not dis- 

 tant, to immediately avail themselves of an 

 occasional treat, which nothing but these 

 annual exhibitions present. 



It includes almost the highest praise that 

 can be awarded to our English School of 

 Art, to say that two examples of it, which 

 form a portion of the present exhibition, are 

 in all respects worthy to occupy the place 

 which has here been assigned them among 

 some of the most distinguished and perfect 

 works which the Art has produced. The 

 Holy Family, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is 

 an exquisite production, including all the 

 beauties of his manner, and not one of his 



faults except perhaps in the face of the 



Virgin, wliich is feeble, unmeaning, and 

 even unnatural. The two cliildren are 

 divinely hvmian. We know of nothing of 

 the kind in ait superior to them, unless it 

 be some few — a very few — of the children 

 of Murillo. No other artist has painted 

 children with so much purity and truth ; and 

 Murillo himself has failed to communicate 

 to them that mysterious, and, as it were 

 prophetic, look and air, without which the 

 two children connected with this particvdar 

 subject take from it much of its " holy" 

 character. The children of all other artists 

 who liave painted this most favourite of all 

 scriptural subjects are made too divine ; and 

 the children of IMurillo are, generally 

 speaking, too exclusively liuman : Reynolds 

 has blended the two characters into one in 

 a manner only to be felt, not described. 

 The general composition of the picture 

 unites the grandly simple with the perfectly 

 natural and unaffected, in a most rare and 

 admirable manner; and the landscape 

 portion of the scene forms a noble adjunct 

 to tlie whole. 



Gainsborough's " LaniLscape, with Market 

 People," (Ua) is the other English work 



to which we alluded. It is a produc- 

 tion that for purity of style, richness of 

 colouring, and depth of light and shade, has 

 rarely been equalled, even among the old 

 masters. It consists simply of some pea- 

 sants in a market cart, passing through a 

 forest scene. In point of what is understood 

 by composition, the picture is nolhing ; and 

 as little does its effect depend on anything 

 arising out of intellectual expression. Every 

 thing is done by the pure force of nature, 

 with which every part teems, and which, 

 arising as it does from an intense feeling of 

 natural truth in the artist, not merely 

 appeals to, but actually creates such feeling 

 in tlie spectator. Time has no doubt done 

 much to mellow and enrich this admirable 

 work ; but it must have been a model of 

 natural truth and simplicity even when 

 fkst it left the easel of its author. 



Those who would examine the difference, 

 together with its causes and effects, between 

 pictures of natural scenery, which, however 

 skilfully executed, exhibit a particular 

 manner in the artist, and one which 

 includes no such quality, cannot have a 

 better occasion of doing so than by compar- 

 ing the work just alluded to with almost 

 any other conspicuous landscape in this col- 

 lection ; for, with the exception of Claude 

 and Gaspar Poussin, all the old masters had 

 a peculiar manner, which amounted to a 

 manifest defect in aU, and a most striking 

 and almost fatal one in many. Look, for 

 example, at the noble landscape of Both (C). 

 It is admirably composed, and brilliantly 

 executed ; but there is a manner about it 

 which more than half destroys the feeling of 

 nature which would otherwise result, and 

 which alone ought to result, from the con- 

 templation of it. It is the same with the 

 Landscapes of Ruysdael, of 'Wouverman, of 

 Potter, and even of Cuyp and of Hobbima, 

 We cannot look upon the works of any one 

 of them without thinking as much of the 

 artist as we do of nature. And the reason 

 for this is simple : the artist is present at 

 least as much as natiure is. But in the 

 charming production of Gainsborough this 

 is not the case; nor is it in those of Claude, 

 or of Gaspar Poussin. Look again, for an 

 illustration of manner, and its fatal effects, 

 on the Prodigal Son, by Rubens (53). The 

 power of hand and feehng of nature displayed 

 in it is wonderful ; but all is deteriorated, 

 and half destroyed, by manner. 



Returning to our passing glance at the 

 most conspicuous works in this collection, 

 we may point out the two Portraits by Van- 

 dyke, (la and 23) as among tlic finest.and 

 most perfect creations of Art in tliis parti- 

 cular hne. There is a solemn weight of 

 intellectual character pressing, as it were, 

 upon the first of these portraits, which gives 

 to it an efl'ect truly grand ami impressive. 

 We know not, and seek not to know, wlw 



P 2 



