37(5 



THE CIVIL ENCINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[October, 



tiiin ill tlic I'ei'.ksiiiffian scliool of design. Yon m;ikc liini f.imilinr witli 

 Furiiival's Inn :ind — oil! 1 could luive forgiven you ;ill flu' rest had 

 von bnt letliini burst into a flood of tears on first beholding the ultra- 

 Pecksnitiian taste displayed in the portico within the court. But yon 

 did not I and so 1 have now done both with Tom Pinch and with you ; 

 merely adding for finis tliat you flung away the beat trump card you 

 held in your hand, and that if you popped off your P P's with the in- 

 tention of bitting the true professional character of architect, — both 

 the worthy and the unworthy, you have for once decidedly missed 

 your aim. 



Candidus. 



ROYAL ACADEMY. 



No. in. 



The power of evil in tlie Academy "has increased, is increasing, 

 and ought to be diminished." It is an obstruction to the greatest 

 plans for the advance of the arts, and a dead weight on every noble 

 aspiration of the student, the people, the sovereign, and the nobility. 



Let tlie genius of any man be what it might, let him l)e ready to 

 sacrifice liis life for the advance of the High Art of the Nation, let him 

 be ready to lay his head on the block for the freedom of the artists, 

 what has been the eternal olog on his efforts, the encumbrance on his 

 shoulders, the obstruction to be removed, or the curse to be avoided ? 

 The Royal Academy of England. Tell me a scheme to improve the 

 people thev have not opposed, a plan to enlighten the nobility they 

 have not baffled, a school to advance the mechanic they have not 

 blasted, or a principle to raise the art they have not withered, by their 

 diplomaev, their scurrility, their sarcasm, their selfish, silent, heartless, 

 practised invisible diplomacy. I defy the reader to reply. The same 

 cautious, wary sneers, the same heartless affectation of doubting 

 the public feeling, the same ridicule of every attempt to im- 

 prove it, the same pig-headed, dull obstinacy to persevere in the 

 beaten path of 70 years ago, the same insolence of avaricious grasp- 

 ing at all the unjust advantages their position affords ; in short, what 

 was the character of the Acatlemy 70 years since, is the character now, 

 and ever will be, viz. a malignant determination to keep themselves up, 

 and the artists down, as long as the sovereign, the nobility, the house, 

 the artists, and the people, are weak enough to let them. 



Whilst their emoluments are nndiininished, their honours unim- 

 paired, and their power the same as ever, they laugh at the people, 

 and chuckle at the helpless condition of the profession, and inwardly 

 swell at their irresponsibility. 



Here is an institution, under the sanction of a constitutional sove- 

 reio-n, without a constitution, and which, as a pure despotism, is suf- 

 fered to exist, and defy the authorities of a country, the sovereign of 

 which would be dethroned at the mere attempt. Such is the anomaly 

 the Academy presents in England — free, "Habeas Corpus," " Bill of 

 Rights," England. How long is this absurdity to exist ? As long as 

 the upper classes are without instruction in art ! And who has baffled 

 Jhe attempt to give them Professors of Art? The Academy, and the 

 Academv alone. In short, whether it be a Professor of Art, or a 

 school of design, whether it be a vote of money, or a decoration of 

 the Lords, the Academy will oppose it, if they are not consulted, and 

 entangle it if they be. 



When Professor Greswell came from Oxford, came in the sincerity 

 of ills heart, to consult Sir Robert on the necessity of a professor, at 

 the University, of the Fine Arts, the Academicians got liold of him 

 first, pumped his intentions, prepared the minister, and established a 

 refusal before even the question was asked ! Why ? Because their 

 predominance would be endangered ; don't enlighten the nation — the 

 Academy will suffer; don't instruct the nobility— the Academy will be 

 found out; don't let the mechanics draw the figure — Sir Martin will 

 be no longer infallible. Let things alone ; preserve the people igno- 

 rant ; the longer the Academy can keep the art to themselves the 

 surer the members will be to keep their emoluments and privileges — 

 exclusiveness, selfishness and despotism. 



Amid the many acts of fiendish malice which the members are 

 guilty of, there is nothing equal to the sturdy rejection of all propo- 

 sition for the admission of the exhibitors, with themselves, on the day 

 set aside to fit the pictures for public inspeetion after they are hung, 

 as the exhibitors are admitted at the British Gallery, and all other 

 institutions which are founded on, and guided by honesty, justice, and 

 common sense. Had the artists the spirit of mice, (which they have 

 not,) they would never cease till thev got abolished this nefarious in- 

 sult. Will they ? not they, they will go on for 70 years more, they 

 like to be slaves, they like to be degraded, to be Insulted, to go on 



their knei's, to crawl to Trafalgar House, to lick their path, to lift the 

 knockers with their noses and to give single knocks, lest touching the 

 sacred handle with their hands or knocking like a gentlemen, would 

 have an air of presumption, and prejudice their election, their hang- 

 ing, or the condescending smile of recognition at the lectures. Poor 

 creatures, they deserve all they meet with and more, for more they 

 vfill have to endure; the sufferance of one insult generally is but a 

 preparation for greater ones. 



Your readers, perhaps, liave to be informed that a week before the 

 private view and dinner of the Royal Academy, the members of the 

 Academy only are admitted, to retouch and varnish their works ; this 

 is an opening for every species of malice, for it is a fact if a member 

 finds his picture interfered with by the superior work of a youth who 

 is not a member, he is allowed to go seriously to work on his own, and 

 by raising every colour unnaturally to a high key of florid glare, so 

 completely to overwhelm the purity and nature of his youthful rival 

 as to leave no hope for the youth, either for sale or patronage. What 

 is the result? The youth by next year sends a picture of such yel- 

 lows and reds as will defy out-Heroding ; but his sense of truth is then 

 contaminated, he becomes a mere exhibition painter, the lowest, the 

 most degraded, the most corrupt of the species — a species not known 

 in Titian's time. 



Academicians have been known to get colours of chemists, foretold 

 at purchase to stand only for the summer, and they replied that ivas 

 long enough ! 



Of all the painters living, whose great genius has been utterly 

 ruined by the perpetual poison of contesting for the glare of the ex- 

 hibitions. Turner is the most fatal beacon to youth; his early works, 

 fresh from nature and study, were worthy of any period of landscape 

 splendour, his latter, a disgrace to the sprawlings of insanity. Thev 

 are not art, and certainly not nature ; they are galvanistic twitchings 

 of dotage, which has dipped its toes in sulphur, whiting and lobster 

 sauce and kicked them about on a smudged canvas, as an experi- 

 ment how far the asses would go who admired him, or how contemp- 

 tible he could render his haters who suppressed their utter disgust 

 in adulation— because they wanted his vote. 



What a system of art to elevate a nation ! what a system to refine its 

 taste ! what a preparation for fresco and a high style 1 Let that pass ; 

 the disgust to complain of is the exclusion of the rest of the exhibitors, 

 that the malignity of those who are let in may have full swing; for I 

 take it, no fiend in hell would wish greater gratification than the power 

 to paint down a rival's picture, by painting up your own wdiilst he is 

 within sight and knowledge, and conscious his prospects of life are 

 every hour narrowing, by this diabolic privilege to those whose in- 

 terest it is to destroy him and deny his power. The shocking thing 

 is, that the pangs each painter has felt at this infamous injustice does 

 not make him feel sympathy for those he leaves in the same condition 

 when he gets member himself, but generates a hideous feeling of re- 

 venge ; he does not say, now I have power I will relieve you — no ; now, 

 lie feels, / have power, curse ye, you shall feel, with double force, 

 what I have felt myself. 



I repeat, it is a power that generates the worst feelings in the best 

 breasts, and deadens at last the moral feelings of right and wrong. 

 Northcote once was deliberately dirting down a picture near his own 

 he could not equal — "That is not your picture," said Beecliy. "I 

 know it," said lie, " but ;Y wu«/s /owe ;" and Northcote was not the 

 only one who had often thought it of other works in similar situations. 



How can any talented body, in a profession of honour, endure such 

 a degradation ? But, it is replied, a portion of the exhibitors are ad- 

 mitted. Yes ; but when? — after the private day, and all the world of 

 fashion have been ; after the dinner, and all the nobility have dined ; 

 after the rooms have been full of dirty plates, empty bottles, footmen 

 and valets ; after the t//Yes of the patrons have had the choice: two 

 hours before the public, on the Monday it opens, the select dishonoured 

 get a dirty, watered note, from a dirty subordinate, to admit them to 

 varnish their work! What condescension! If all the artists tore 

 their notes in pieces and enclosed them by post to the Council, it 

 would be too respectful a way of conveying their contempt. But, 

 said Sir Martin, it is one of the privileges of being academician ! yes, 

 and to be able to bow-string your minister is one of the privileges of 

 being Sultan; but, does its being a privilege make it justice? 



If artists made a stand against this studied insult, they would put it 

 down; but they have not the manliness, the bottom, the spirit, the 

 unanimity. Sorry am I to say what the world will echo, there is no 

 treachery like the treachery of t.ilent! The temptation to lower a 

 rival is so relishing, the evil of our nature rises to the brim to such 

 overflowing, that humanity is not proof against the Circean whisper. 

 No united, embodied, decided, energetic movement to remove, re- 

 model, or reform this nightmare on the beautiful and heaving bosom of 

 English art, can ever take place, or ever will be attempted by a pro. 



