Ju.N-E 16, 1882.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



33 



iCL \ AN ILLiJ,ilR\TED ^ i^ 



; ^^^ MAGA,ZlNEo?S€IENCE ^ 



: PLAINLY VfORJED -EXACTLY DrSCRH^}--0 



LONDON: FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1882. 



Contents of No. 33. 



7161. 



The Grosrraor Galler/ 33 Enslish Seaside Heilth-Kesorts 



Was Ramesei II. the Pharaoh of | Alfred Uaviland 



the Oppression? By Amelia B. | Home Cures for Poisons 



F.dvanb. II.— Joseph's Place in ! June Flowers 



History 31, The History of Tube.-cla 



The Amateur Electrician — Elec- ' On Some Critics 



trie Generators {lUuatraUd) 35 ' Coebespoxbescs 



How to Get Strong 36 Answers to Correspondenta 



A Studv of Minute Life. By Henrv Our Mathematical Colunm 



J. Slack. F.G.S., F.E.MS :. 37 Our WTiist Column 



Conduct and Duty 3S Our Chess Columa 



THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 



[Second Notice.] 



ART and science are so closely akin, and Loth are so 

 manifestly included under the general head Know- 

 ledge, that we need make no excuse for treating works of 

 art from the artistic as well as from the scientific stand- 

 point. Yet we shall not dwell further on those enormities 

 of the (esthetic and maniac schools which are manifest at 

 once to the artistic eye. We must, in passing, note tliat a 

 word in excuse may l)e said for the followers of the modern 

 MediiBval school. There is a natural temptation for those 

 who find that, thougli eager to cover canvas, they can 

 iieither draw nor paint, to take work in hand wlucli re- 

 quires skill neitlier in colouring nor in drawing. " You 

 are not pretty, my child," said a clever mother to 

 her daughter ; " therefore, you had better be odd. It is 

 your only chance of attracting attention." This, which is 

 the raison cTelre of the a-sthetic school generally, is a sutfi- 

 cient principle for the painters of that school. Any one can 

 copy a mcdiajval picture without faults detracting from its 

 mediaival character : a little change in an iinpos.iiblo limb 

 does not make it less mediievally impossible ; a slight 

 difference in some ghastly tint gives only another ghastly 

 hue, which still remains mediajvally hideous. There- 

 fore, if we were advising a would-be artist who 

 could neither paint nor draw (and who was too 

 lazy to learn) how he might obtain an ca.sy noto- 

 riety, we should tell him to try the mediieval school. 

 " You are too unskilful or too idh^" we might say, 

 "to paint anything really good; therefore go in for 

 oddity. Even i/our drawing will not spoil a mediieval 

 figure. You know as much of perspective, linear and 

 aerial, as the mediseval painters did (who knew nothing) ; 

 you cannot err much more egregiously through want of 

 talent and energy than they did through want of expe- 

 rience. Follow, then, their school. Carefully copy all their 

 faults. Pretend that you find in deformity beauty which 

 others cannot see, in sickly tints a delicacy of hue which 

 others cannot appreciate. Remembering that as there are 

 always many foolish j>eople, you may be sure of a fol- 

 lowing, after a fashion." In every age there have been 



these affectations, though we learn it, unfortunately, not 

 from any works which have survived, for all the works of 

 such schools have a fatal facility in fading out of view, but 

 from occasional passages of ridicule in writings by contem- 

 poraries who have survived. In this way the memory of 

 even esthetic absurdities may be handed down — to an 

 amused posterity. 



Of the Whistler school it need only be said that as there 

 are some who take idiocy for eestacy, there may be a few 

 who find genius in insanity. 



It would be unfair to class Mr. Paget's " Odysseus " 

 (No. 26), with either the idiotic or the insane schools of art 

 He has honestly and painstakingly — almost painfully — 

 endeavoured to work out a certain idea : only, unfortunately, 

 the idea was not altogether a good one, or what was good 

 in it only a very great artist could effectively educe. 

 Ulysses steering towards the setting sun, his body illumi- 

 nated by the rays of the sinking orb, a dark purple gloom 

 gathering over the mountains behind, broken only here and 

 there by touches of ruddy light — this were a subject, indeed, 

 for a noble painting. How finely might the worn but reso- 

 lute face of the wanderer be presented, sadness and courage 

 contending over it even as the gloom and glory of sunset 

 were contending on sky and sea and mountain height ! In 

 such a work a great painter would not have suffered the 

 thoughts to be distracted from the poetry of the 

 main idea by trivial accessories. He would not (appa- 

 rently for no other purpose) have added to the 

 artistic difficulties of his subject, by endeavouring to 

 do what no artist has ever yet done successfully in ideal 

 painting, — to represent, namely, one half only of a boat (in 

 other words, to present the picture from an impossible 

 point of view). It is this which :Mr. Paget has done, and 

 herein, we conceive, began the difficulties which led to this 

 picture becoming a rather painful failure instead of a 

 decided success, as it might have been if the artist had not 

 overweighted himself with difficulties. Albeit tlie hero's 

 face is hopelessly coarse and commonplace ; and in a scien- 

 tific sense we must object to the head which Mr. Paget has 

 assigned to the man of keenest intellect and widest expe- 

 rience among the heroes who fought before Troy : Ajax 

 Telamon rather than Ulysses is here depicted. 



If we had not known that Mr. Holman Hunt can paint, 

 and paint well, we should not have discovered it from the 

 ridiculous picture which he has chosen to call " Miss 

 Flamborough." Ill conceived, ill drawni, and worse painted, 

 it is utterly unworthy of him. 



Mr. Muybridge lias, we believe, left England for Ame- 

 rica. We trust he did not, before he went, observe Mr. 

 Clarke's picture " Labour " (No. 38), with its impossible 

 horses, or Mr. Barclay's "Early Steps" (No. 43), with its 

 very singular calf. " Flora," in No. 47 (R. W. Macbeth), 

 ought, if she were wise, to get rid as quickly as possible of 

 those hounds, whose villanous faces accord ill witli their 

 ridiculous shapes. 



The " Release of Prometheus by Hercules" (No. 57, by 

 Mr. Richmond), and the "Entombment" (No. 51, by 

 Julian Story), are pretentious but ill executed attempts, a 

 very long way " after the " great master whose style is aped. 



Of Mr. Richmond's portrait of Mr. Gladstone (No. 77), 

 it were well to say nothing, since nothing good can he 

 said. But there are some excellent porti-aits by Mr. 

 Richmond, showing that if he has painU'd Gladstone so 

 tliat the Premier's worst enemies must feel a touch of 

 sympathy for him, he can do what is very gooil when not 

 over taxed by the wish to do something very great 



The finest portrait, however, in the Gi-osvenor collection 

 this year is among the sculptures, Mr. E. Roscoe MuUius's 

 bust of the Rev. Stopford Brooke (No. 368). Wo do not 



