32 
THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
[Nature and Alt, Juue 1, 1866. 
St. Bartholomew ” (364), by Yeames, is a very good picture. 
Elizabeth and her court are all in deep mourning'. Her 
aspect is capitally represented, and the portraits of the 
statesmen who surround her are all good and well painted. 
Though they are distant from the spectator, the interest 
is centred in them. The figures and gay costumes of the 
French ambassador and his attendants are not very gainly 
or pleasing ; but perhaps this is what the painter intended. 
They are the courtly representatives — to use the viYid 
description of Motley — of that “ wolfish mob of Paris 
which lapped the blood of 10,000 Huguenots in a single night, 
and was again rabid with thirst.” There is another his- 
torical picture relating to Paris, No. 396, by G. Fisk, 
“ Waiting for the Moniteur Newspaper detailing the Arrest 
of Robespierre.” It depicts an earnest and excited crowd 
of men and women waiting with French patience for the 
attention of the official newsvendor, and shows, at all 
events, careful study. “ The last Moments of Raffaelle ” j 
(165), by O’Neill, has considerable merit, and shows that 
the artist has greatly improved in colour. The landscape, 
seen from the window is very striking and solemn ; but the 
features of the dying man bear no resemblance to those so 
well known and commonly received as Raffaelle’ s, nor does 
the creation on the whole convey the remotest impression 
of his character or his works. “ The Poisoned Cup ” (500), 
by J. D. Watson, is a striking genre painting of a most 
unpleasant subject. 
The pictures on religious subjects are as few as a 
trading and commercial age might be supposed to 
require. “The Remorse of Judas” (101) and “The 
Parents of Christ seeking Him” (503), both by Armitage, 
are fine specimens of a powerful master unaccountably 
passed over in the new creation of associates. “ The Child 
Jesus in the Temple,” by Dobson (273), is pretty and 
sweet in colour, but feeble, to the last degree, in cha- 
racter. In fact, “ Wayside Devotion, Brittany ” (107), by 
Boughton, is a far more truly religious work than those 
painted professedly to represent Scriptural subjects. 
Again and again, as we walk through the exhibition of 
the Academy, will the awkward question occur to us, 
whether painters who are hangers have been denied, or in 
virtue of their office, deprived of, the sentiment of mag- 
nanimity. Such a reflection has just been roused by what 
seems to us the sadly unfair “hanging” of No. 150, 
“ Moonrise,” by Daubigny. The picture is completely 
“ skyed ” — hung next the ceiling, — yet it is a noble work, so 
far as we are allowed to judge. “ The Martyrdom of St. 
Stephen” (254), by Legros, is another instance of unfair 
hanging. The artist is a young Frenchman of very original 
and remarkable power. His works are well known for their 
tragic force and mystic effect. The figure and expression 
of the martyr-saint are clearly by no common hand. Mark 
Anthony, again, is one who has been persistently all his life 
oppressed by his brother-artists. He is a landscape-painter 
of whom England will one day be proud, but who, whatever 
his fame is or may be outside, owes nothing to the Royal 
Academy. Year after year, till the painter has grown grey, 
have his pictures been hung in the worst places. His 
“ Peace of the Yalley ” (380) shows an ivy-mantled church 
standing on a rich and heavy green sward, with fitful gleams 
of sunshine flitting across the time-worn trees around. 
Mr. Leighton’s pictures (Nos. 4, 7, and 292) are all in the 
grand style, rich and sensual in colour, striking in concep- 
tion, varied in attitude and composition. He is an accom- 
plished artist, who will bring fame to the English school. 
Mr. Hook’s pictures are all homely subjects, transcripts, 
true to the life, of land and sea, of men and women ; yet 
we have now seen so many of the same subjects, in the 
same tone, that, charming as is every one of the pictures he 
has this year exhibited, it would be a relief if Mr. Hook 
would paint something different. We may here say a word 
for Mr. Melbv’s “Drifting on the Rocks ” (327), which has 
the best-painted sea in the exhibition. Mr. Calderon ex- 
hibits three pictures. No. 24 is entitled “ Her most high, 
noble, and puissant Grace.” A child is being attended by a 
retinue of men and women, very finely painted showing a 
great variety of character, and well composed ; yet the 
ensemble wants interest, and if satire is intended it is very 
far-fetched. Mr. Nicol furnishes some admirable represen- 
tations of character, and his truthful and elaborate repre- 
sentation of accessories is marvellous. Notice especially 
No. 335, “ Paying the Rent.” What character there is in 
all the figures, and what exquisite touches of humour ! 
Landscape-painting is a speciality of the English nation, 
and, whether as a pendant to the love of nature itself, or as 
inducing that love, is equally worthy of admiration and 
esteem. The figure-painter may study his model at his 
leisure ; but the true, imaginative, and poetical landscape- 
painter must carry away his impressions of sky and water 
on his brain, for they are changing, fleeting, and transitory. 
He requires exact powers of observation with a strong- 
memory, and then, if his imaginative faculties are large, 
and if he knows how to discard the trivial and unnecessary, 
painting only what is adaptable to art, he will produce 
those poetical poems with which the greatest painters have 
delighted the world. In Mr. Raven’s (No. 95) “ The Dow 
rising by Moonlight,” mistiness, light, and reflection are 
very strikingly represented. It is worth looking at again 
and again, and will well repay careful study 7 . 
In Mr. Dawson we have another instance of a brilliant 
landscape-painter hardly dealt with by the “hangers.” His 
“ Scene on the Ribble, Harvest Time ” (316), hung next the 
ceiling, is evidently a noble landscape as respects the 
treatment of sky, water, and corn-field. “ A Spate in the 
Highlands ” (373), by Graham, is a powerful rendering of 
the storm and mist and sun-gleams of Scotland. “ Summer’s 
Golden Crown,” V. Cole (185), is a view of rich corn with 
a distant landscape. No. 403, by the same hand, and called 
“ Evening Rest,” is a lovely scene. The sky, the water, 
the church tower, and the house-tops, the foliage, and the 
shadows, are all rendered with wonderful effect. It is a 
picture the spectator may linger over with ever-increasing 
pleasure. No. 421, by Holl, junior, “The Ordeal,” tells its 
story 7 well. A painter and his wife are looking on while an 
expected purchaser and his wife — a rather fine lady — are 
examining a picture on the easel. Who can compute the 
sum of thought, labour, and anxiety 7 , of heart-burning and 
heart-aching one exhibition would disclose if the story of 
every picture could be told. 
“Ere Care begins” (11), by T. Faed, R.A., is one of the 
artist’s pleasing homely subjects; but Mr. Faed’s colour, 
though rich, has a tendency to fattiness. “ On the Way to 
School” (117), E. Davis, is excellent. The boy is really in 
motion ; the girls and the landscape are admirably painted ; 
and the picture is altogether a perfect gem, by a young 
artist. “ Trial by Judge and Jury ” (115), C. Hunt, is full 
of humour; and No. 191, “ Hearts are Trumps,” by Archer, 
is a good work. The archness and beauty of the girls, and 
the richness of the dresses, are most effective, and perhaps 
the textures are here painted with more brilliancy than in 
any other work in the exhibition. 
Of pictures “ By command,” Mr. Thomas’s “ Queen and 
Prince Albert at Aldershot” (212) is by far the best, and 
the only one of its class we can afford space to notice. 
Mr. P. F. Poole, the Academician, is one of the most poetical 
of English painters ; his works are always full of imagina- 
tive power and rich with the glory of colour. We cannot, 
however, think that in his “ Before the Cave of Belarius,” 
from Cymbeline (82), he has worthily represented Imogen. 
There are cases in which a poet has created a character 
which only a pictorial genius as great as the poet’s could 
worthily transfer to canvas ; and Imogen is one of them. 
This artist’s “Midsummer Night,” figuring a shepherd boy 
asleep by the sea, we can only term a perfect idyll. 
If the terrestrial beauties in this exhibition come short of 
angelic quality, the professed angels are no better off. This 
applies to Mr. Thorburn’s “Orphan” (279), but though 
the angel be a failure, the orphan’s head is admirably con- 
ceived and painted. We would now gladly give our im- 
pressions on the portraits, but, as want of space does not 
permit us to do so, they must be reserved for a future 
notice. 
