84 
THE DUDLEY GALLERY. 
[Nature and Art, March 1, 1867. 
speak presently, but for the present let us consider 
the intelligent and skilful arrangement, the lovely 
colour, the wonderful expressiveness of the heads, 
the delicate inventive detail. Cordelia is one of 
those typical characters for which each man finds 
an embodiment according to Iris experience and 
idiosyncrasy ; and so, if one is pleased to say this 
is not the Cordelia of his own musings, we feel 
that the question does not admit of argument, and 
would therefore only point out that this figure re- 
presents the agony of a creature fine and gracious, 
firm to bear, most gentle to protest, of few loves, 
but many charities, of clear wise counsel, but of little 
craft. And such was Cordelia. If you think she had 
blue eyes, not brown ones, or that her hair was of 
a paler gold, or that it fell in simpler braids ; if 
there are these or a hundred other differences be- 
tween your conception and the artist’s, you may 
object : but the character of Cordelia, we aver, is 
here adequately embodied. About those of the 
other personages, no attentive person can be in 
doubt. Lust, cruelty, craft, pride, all furious hates, 
make pale the face of Regan, and burn in the fierce 
eyes of Goneril ; see, too, her fleshy white arm 
and sensual hand. Albany is noble by contrast, 
and is, perhaps, the redeeming point in this part of 
the picture as he is in the play ; and Lear, with the 
coming madness gleaming in his eyes, is again a great 
study of character. He is arrogant and self-willed, 
for lie has long been a king. Brave he is, and 
somewhat cruel ; violent, but not vindictive. You 
can find no lines of cunning in his gaunt face, all 
haled by weather and fierce feasting. That he 
should not do what he would, bewilders him. You 
see him here blinded by rage against the inex- 
plicable opposition to his pleasure that Cordelia’s 
misunderstood answer has raised up. His eyes do 
not see in her his daughter, but a stumbling-block 
to be cast out of the way. His strong hands would 
smite her, if so weak a creature could stand at bay. 
Albeit, he is not wont to be harsh to the feeble, and 
- — if we may judge from the vigorous eyebrows and 
large mouth — he, too, “ has knowen love and his 
service,” as Chaucer says. 
There are, no doubt, things in this picture which 
require some explanation. Why, for instance, has the 
nose of the child been snipped off by the frame? But 
probably the artist who has carried so fine a work 
to such a point had some good reason for this. As 
to the colouring, there can only be one opinion of its 
technical perfection. It may be reasonably held 
that, in such a scene, the embroideries and details 
would be little noticed, and that, in represent- 
ing such extreme emotion, it is right to follow 
this natural law of perception, and even to force 
the face and hands of the personages into a promi- 
nence which all who have witnessed any great crisis 
of human life remember to have been its most 
striking characteristic. Mr. Brown has not chosen 
this effect, and we must take him as he comes before 
us. There is gain in beauty of colour and interest 
of detail, by the treatment he has adopted. How 
lovely the clear green of Cordelia’s robe. How 
rich the black and orange striped robe of Regan, 
and how inventive the varied black of her hair 
folded into the bosom of it. The head of Albany 
is fine in colour also ; and if the arm of Goneril is 
not very well drawn, it is very fair. All through 
the picture there are beautiful inventions of orna- 
ments and patterns, and a power of realizing the 
costume of the remote time to which the story 
belongs. We could write much more upon this 
subject, but we think we have said enough to send 
oi I r readers to the picture itself. If, having seen 
it, they do not like it, we feel that no eulogy of 
ours can change their opinion ; for Mr. Brown’s 
work has no conciliation for a hostile critic : we 
know of none that excites greater opposition ; nor 
is any a more constant source of delight to those 
who do admire it. 
In great contrast to the passion and dramatic 
intensity just described is Mr. Field Talfourd’s 
very lovely idyl of the “Summer Sea” (No. 215). 
Here everything is of the simplest. There is no more 
work than just explains the effect. The subject is 
only an old boat drawn up upon the sand, under a 
low bank — and the sea. And yet it is perhaps the 
most suggestive work in the whole room. In the 
first place, it is really simple. Simplicity is a quality 
so. often affected, that one begins to suspect the 
word ; but true simplicity is one of the greatest 
qualities a rvork of art can possess, and can only 
be produced by clearness of idea, complete design in 
colour and composition, and a mind capable of har- 
monious thought. 
If you examine this little picture, you will 
begin to perceive how many things might have 
been put into it which are not there. It 
seems impossible to have escaped sea-gulls, or 
distant cottages, or fishermen, or (more dangerous 
still) their children. Why is there nothing but 
this old boat and the pausing sea ? Without a 
guiding idea, such a picture could never have 
been composed ; no canon of taste could have 
taught the artist that these simple lines are all 
that are required. Now that it is done, we know 
that any living object, or object suggestive of neigh- 
bourhood, would have disturbed the mute com- 
panionship of boat and water, as they take their 
ease in the summer calm. There is something very 
touching in this sturdy little boat, lying at the edge 
of all the great sea, nearly within reach of the soft 
foaming and warm shallows of the waves. The sky 
also is at rest ; the small clouds and films of 
haze are, for the moment, anchored in the fair blue 
weather that shows between the banks of lieat-fog. 
All the artillery of tempest is there ; but it is the 
armistice of summer. This picture is charmingly 
painted, with few colours, and apparently few 
touches. The warm haze is wonderfully true, and 
the loose sand-bank exactly right in hue. Mr. 
Talfourd has never, we understand, exhibited 
landscapes before. The loss has been ours. 
