

Art Subjects and their Treatment. 361 



will be assisted by Mr. Millais' queer, quaint, and powerful 

 caricature to form a higher or a deeper conception of the 

 moral truth embodied in the narrative, than he would hare 

 done from simply reading it or hearing it read ? 



We are not impressed with the " Scenes from the Life of 

 Christ" that stand next in our list. After all that has been 

 done, it is, no doubt, amazingly difficult for any one to satisfy 

 us with delineations of these subjects. Novelty in conception, 

 dignity, and poetic truth in their treatment, are characteristics 

 we want and seldom find. 



Queen Esther is the theme of two pictures ; one by 

 Mr. Armitage represents the " Banquet of Wine," at which 

 Haman makes supplication for his life. The treatment of this 

 story does not convey the impression that Mr. Armitage was 

 very deeply moved by it. It looks as if he regarded it as 

 affording opportunity for depicting a richly-draped oriental 

 group, and we look at it without any moral or intellectual 

 excitation being the result. Out of the thousands who will 

 look at it on the Academy walls, perhaps none will find that it 

 has induced them to refer to the Scripture narrative on their 

 return home. The second picture is by Millais, who brings 

 before us a brilliant yellow silk dress, ornamented with rich 

 and curious embroidery: The fashion may not be quite that of 

 high life in Pekin, but it has a Chinese aspect, and had we 

 seen it at the Crystal Palace, it would have seemed an appro- 

 priate companion of the rich and rare things from the Summer 

 Palace of the f( Central Flowery Land." But the features of 

 the inhabitant of this gorgeous robe are not Chinese, so no 

 such mistake ought to be made. True, after looking at the 

 dress, you can see the lady, who is the accessory in the scene 

 — the principal being undoubtedly the dress itself. . Now, it 

 will happen, even in the best society, that the tailor makes the 

 man, and the dressmaker the woman ; but our own — unartistic 

 — recollection of the old story is that Queen Esther was of a 

 different stamp, and we ask in an ideal portrait the charm of 

 womanhood that subdued the savage monarch, and some 

 evidence of the patriotic devotion that made her the bene- 

 factress of her race. Yellow silk, with the best embroidery, 

 did not do the work the narrative ascribes to her, and we 

 should not have associated the picture with any Jewish heroine 

 at all. It is a wonderful portrait of a yellow dress, and 

 nothing more. 



The grandest of the Scripture subjects treated in the 

 exhibition is " Elijah's Sacrifice," by Mr. A. Moore. We 

 cannot in the least comprehend the theory he has formed of 

 this scene. In Mendelssohn's sound painting it is sublime. 

 The barbaric rites of the idolaters, the fervid piety and stern 



