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£14 THE PICTURES OF THE SEASON*
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
~« G»- - Vedl Were Y To Quantit Congratu...
deliverance by stating tliat the " Pre-Raphaelite absurdities and eccentricities " were carefully weeded out in the present exhibition .
If this be so , the snake is scotched not killed , and , instead of congratulating" ourselves upon a more healthy development of the
artistic powers of the rising * _generation of painters , we have only to thank the matured taste and judgment of the older artists who
_^ form what is called the Hang-ing- Committee . Was it a momentary lapse of vigilance on their part which gained
admission for Mr . Scott ' s " Una and the Lion ; " or a grim joke at the expense of the whole Pre-Raphaelite corps of painters , by an
exposition to public view , and , we are glad to add , to public reprobation also , of this gross caricature of " Pre-Raphaelite eccentricities
and absurdities" by one of themselves ? . " The Hedger , " by Mr . Brett , is the noticeable picture of
this school . Carefully and elaborately painted , every leaf and flower almost painfully individualisedwe are yet borne by a
cer-, tain vigor and freshness of treatment to nooks where primroses ' and blue-bells bloomed for our delight .
Atmosj ) here and space enter not into the calculation of the Pre-Raphaelite artist . "With all the minute prosaic detail of photography ,
he ignores the relative value of the objects before him , so that while the sun and the camera will at times , by a happy combination of
chances , produce pictorial effects , neither by chance nor design can the Pre-Raphaelite accomplish this end . Hence in " The Pledger , "
the effect of woodland scenery designed by the artist falls short of its mark upon the spectator , whoif he be moved at all , finds his
thoughts borne to some one nook , or corner , where , lying upon the turf , his eyes on a level with the flowers , he saw blue-bells and
wood anemones look in detail as Mr . Brett would persuade himself and others they look en masse . The same ignoring of space and
_atmosjDhere is even more striking in the figures which cits-figure this work . The heavy , lumpish girl in the back-ground is heavy
and lumpish because , in the absence of the artist ' s recognition of what space and atmosphere effect in real lifethough in the
back-, ground , she is not , as the artist evidently intended , in the distance , and presses painfully upon the eyes and senses of the spectator .
The j ) icture of the season , Holman Hunt ' s " Finding of Christ in the Temple , " is marred by the same defects . Consummately as
it is painted , exquisite and beautiful as it is in detail , a very marvel of conscientious labor , studyand skillit is not a picture . It wants
unity and repose , it is defective , in space , and atmosphere , and while we gaze with admiration and wonder upon the faultless detail ,
upon the matchless manipulation , it is the very fault of this great work , that it is in detail we gaze , now upon the inimitable group of
Rabbii to the left , now irpon the boy-Christ and the Virgin and Joseph , and anon on the fretted roof of the temple , the beggar at
the door , and the workmen beyond .
Not so do we gaze upon the " Transfiguration" or the " Assump-
£14 The Pictures Of The Season*
£ 14 THE PICTURES OF THE SEASON *
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1860, page 414, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081860/page/54/
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