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    450 * THE -LEABE| , |SJTU RgAY>

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    EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. [fiest ...

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    EXHIBITION OF THE AMATEUR SOCIETY, A sma...

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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.

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    The Warden Of Gal Way, Produced At The O...

    THE MUSICAL UNION of Tuesday last was a brilliant affair . Madame Pleyel and Joachim were very properly regarded as " immense attractions . " Of her playing it is difficult to speak in terms not feeble from their exaggeration ; ( and what is so feeble as exaggeration P ) but those who have heard Liszt , Mendelssohn , and Mendelssohn's sister play , may be told that Madame Pleyel has the qualities of all three ; she is less brilliant , perhaps , than Liszt , but also less mannered ; she has not the power , of Mendelssohn , but , more grace and . delicacy . There is a peculiarly caressing delicacy in her touch , which no one lias equalled ; and she is equal to all styles . Her playing of thai exquisite trio D minor ( 49)—Mendelssohn ' s most brilliant trio to m £ thinking—was bewitching ; and wonderfully was she seconded by Joachim and Piatti . The two compositions by Liszt served to exhibit her variety and power as an executant , but the trio was to me the most convincing proof of her immense talent . Joachim is a , first-rate player—worthy to be heard after Ernst ; and thoroughly conscientious , disdaining all trick . Vivian .

    450 * The -Leabe| , |Sjtu Rgay>

    450 * THE -LEABE | , | SJTU RgAY >

    Exhibition Of The Royal Academy. [Fiest ...

    EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY . [ fiest notice . ] In out opening notice of the Royal Academy Exhibition we follow our usual course , and rapidly survey the prominent pictures in the order of the catalogue . The first that collects around it a knot of spectators , not very easily penetrated , is " The Battle of Meeanee , " by Mr . < x . Jones—a composition , however , which makes far less impression on the mind than the written despatches . Probably the ground has" been mapped out with

    some research , and there is a degree of action . No one can deny the fact of horses galloping , or of Beloochees receiving their quietus ; but , on the whole , the effect is excessively tame . One has an idea that Mr . Jones might be able to get on better in battles if he were to go and see " life " under some fast gent , or to place himself as pupil with Mr . Michael Angelo Hayes . He must have been overlaid by " the documents" to which the catalogue alludes ; insomuch that , with a desire for literal accuracy ,

    he has forgotten to give us General Napier in characteristic career . Above is " The Parting of Lord and . Lady ( William ) Russell / ' the night before the death of the noble convict—a simple subject , treated b y Lacy with much good feeling , but scarcely needing the space devoted to it .. In " The Woodland Mirror , " Redgrave makes a still further advance in his landscape career : an amphitheatre of wood and tall grass encloses the bay-like edge of a small lake or popl ; the vegetation treated in the manner whicli Redgrave has helped to develop , portraying the plants separately

    and distinctly with surprising fidelity , not only to the individual trees , but to the harmonious effect of the whole . The relation of the distance , seen in an opening at the corner , to the foreground , is not preserved with equal fidelity ; it is harsh , heavy , and obtrusive . In " Venice , " David Roberts brings the scene before you with his visual power and reality , but with less of the brilliancy characteristic of the place . The visitor will like to sqe Mr . Swinton's grouped portrait of Mrs . Norton , Lady DufFerin , and Lady Seymour , for the sake of the originals . Charles Landseer ' s " Death of Edward the Third" has the merit of a matter-of-fact industry " J . 1 U ^«» .-.. ^ C ! 4- «« ££ ^ 1 J * si ( 6 U a -rw *\ 4 ? "EJr » C *« " 1 ^ n ri 4-l \ v ^ AVV «» O C « Clf rraY \ QO d O Tl ti l l / Ociiuui / iwj

    111 1 / lltJ gCVVlllg Up . UtUUUCiU a ¦ iJtl J W XJChLiXj X 1 CLO VLLXJ CA ^ oa ^ beauty of the original view , but not the life : it is tame . May we not use exactly the same expressions to Francis Grant ' s portrait of Mr . Disraeli ? "A School Playground , " by Webster , implies an Homeric volume of vicissitude and character . " Antwerp , " with its eternal tower , never looked more majestic nor more gloomy than in Roberta ' s view . Frith paints a mother teaching her child to say its prayers . Lee and Sidney Cooper we again find associated in an evening meadow scene : both of them have several works in the Exhibition , and on the whole , we think they work best apart : Lee cannot come up to Cooper ' s sunshine , nor does Cooper do so well without it . A little picture of Webster ' s might escape notice for its quiet and' small size , but it is one of his hap-Parkis

    piest " bits "—we mean the "AB 0 . " " Blackheath " painted by Mulready , after the manner of the landscape in his illustration of the Vicar of Wakefield—a curious compromise of extreme minuteness and coarseness—a cross between Prm-T ? aplmolism and scene-painting . " A Scene from Cymbeline" enables Frank Stone to portray a very beautiful woman ' s countenance . " Beech-trees and Forn" is a large picture , with nothing but a view , under the trees , of trunks and ground herbage ; freed from the- gloomy blackness , and also from the want of keeping , which usually mar Anthony ' pictures . " TUo Sunset Hour" is Creswick ' s best picturo in the collection—a mill elevated on a bank , a smooth mill-stream , the crimson glow of the setting sun reflected in the stream and in tlio little pools of water that encroach on tlio lowland—a scene of much beauty and intense quiet . The reverse in both those respects of Madiso ' s " Alfred in tlio tent of Gutlirum ; " the Danes , like " the Sonacchoribs , "

    " wallowing in wantonesse , " and Alfred " egging them on by his sweefco mtfsieke "—all . as John Speed notes , and painters innumerably have painted . There are two things of which one is intensely conscious in Mr . MacliBc ' H pictures—tho outline of every figure and every object , or part of an object , and tlio great mastoid muscle in the neck or every man . Tho colouring appeared to uh , on a hasty viow , not less startling than usual , but not ho much adulterated with black and white ellalk . Let us not , howevor , pass Harding's good picture , " Tho Falls of the Ithinc , ; ' although tlio hanging committee have hung it below tlio lino ; nor the . interesting' portrait oi' Mr . Thomas Vau # Jianf b y Knight . " A Letter from the Colonies" is a composition , much like Webs tor ' s " . Rubber of Whist ; " the iiguro at tho window being the village postman ; a fathor and daughter appear to bo intently scanning tho dirootion , while

    tho mother is more intontly awaiting tho contents , and tho postman not less impatiently awaiting his fee . It is ono of Webster's admirable bits of real Hie . Mr . Leslie ' s " Juliet , " whom the catalogue represents as saying , " What if it boa poison which the friar , " & c , looks moro like a young lady of our own day , in delicate health , and reluctantly preparing her soul to take " the mixture as before . " Let us notice the dotestablo portrait of Mrs . Coventry K . Patmoro after wo have seen what tho noble painter of it can really do . To judge by " Tlio Marquis of Saluco

    a sea with boats and its restless waters , are old . subjects with Stanfield ; but one tires of them as little" as of the sea itself / and for the same reason—^ the ceaseless life . Mr . Hart illustrates an elaborate piece of bibliographic research respecting the three inventors ¦ of . printing" Guttenberg , Faust , and Sekeffer , " with that curious perversity of our present artists , that makes them bestow their greatest vigour on the most abstract subjects . The Battle of Meeanee is reduced to' an orna mental tableau , which needs not disturb a drawing-room ; while a British com

    quite himself . An amphitheatre of hills , with an old castled height marries Griselde , " we should say that Mr / Cope has had no acquaint ance either with the royal Marquis or the patient" '¦ g irl .. . The luxuriant face and wavering attitude of the Griselda , the empty-headed weakness of the Marquis , bely the attempt to pass them off for the black " blooded tyrant or the unconquerable woman whose patience conquered his obstinacy . In " The Port of Iia Eochelle , Stanfield is quite himself . An amphitheatre of hills , with an old castled height

    positoiy setting up the advertisements in the Ttmes newspaper , shall be represented in an ecstatic condition , wholly at variance with one ' s notions of practical business . In the middle room , " The Mountain Lake" will strike you as one of the best works that Creswick has ever produced , being , like the * one we hare already mentioned , broader , and more powerful than his compositions are apt to be . ¦ " Florence Cope , at Dinner-time , " is an agreeable exercise of oaternal pride—a careful and vigorous portrait of a very good model .

    According to the testimony of this picture , Cope appears to be among those who aj * e inclining towards the truth which is in the half-truthful Pree-Baphaelite school . In " A Subject from Pepys' Diary , "—[ why will educated Englishmen break the laws that regulate the inflection of the genitive case in Pepys's affairs ?]— Elmore sets forth the ingenious diarist singing with Mercer and Knipp * while his wife sits for her picture—a good combination of fancy portraits founded on fact . Redgrave ' s " Love and Labour "—typified by half-a-dozen mowers all of a row , and a couple whose courtship seems rather to hang on hand- —answers no particular purpose that we can discern . Ansdell is buckling to fact , and his " Cattle Fair" is a great advance on previous works in accuracy of execution . M . Winterlaaies tne of

    haller s " Florinde , a graceiui composition or , arcer manner the critical lower Italian schools , —Phillips ' s " Magdalen" surveying the distant Calvary , —Bankley ' s " Eugene Aram , " in school , —Wehnert ' s " Elopement , the Eve of St . Agnes /'—E . M . Ward ' s | Gharlotte Corday going to Execution , " we shall pass over hastily , precisely for the reason that ^ they will strike the visitor without our help , arid we shall have to notice them all again . Ward ' s picture has a weightier interest in it than any that he has yet produced—the character is very impressive . Frith's painful scene from Lord Wharncliff'V memoirs of Lady Mary Wortley Montague— " Pope makes love to Lady Mary "—is a triumph of storytelling ; the insolent laughter which "is the beajuty ' s reply to Pope ' s " declaration "—the beauty so complete , so unimpaired , the laughter , so

    ringing , so intentional , the poet , so bodiless , so beaten down , so writhing under tlus sense , of the unwarrantable andrunjust insolence—are expressed with a subtlety , and , at the same time , a force , not often seen together , it even apart , on the walls of the respectable and Royal Academy . " A Grazier's Place on the Marshes" is the picture that made us think how much better- Sidney Cooper is alone , although we have so often admired his ioint labour with Lee . Turner ' s " Lodging-house" at Chelsea , should be noted ; also Inchbold's " Study" —prse-Eaphaelitism , among the twigs , Elmore ' s " Novice , " for much expression and sweetness , an excellent Protestant picture ; Boxall ' s " Portrait of General Edgar Wyatt , tor its life-like character ; Roberts' " Interior of St . Stephen ' s , at Vienna , for its vast space and grandeur ; Frith's " Portrait of a Lady , tor its gentle and quiet , real-life grace , should not be overlooked m tne

    hastiest survey . „ First in the West "Room is Armitage ' s great picture of -ttagaiv a spacious piece of mannerism inferior to the painter ' s own faculties . " Antwerp Market" we notice as the promising work of a very young exhibitor , who is triply allied to tho arts—Mrs . X M . Ward . f lhere u much Pra 3-Raphaelitish merit in Thomas ' s " Laura in Avignon . J- ™ Timber Wagon" is one of Linnell ' s most characteristic landscapes , ana therefore , to us , ono of his most unpleasing : nature does not present ; every substance in the form of agglomerated particles like mouldy cheese . Millais ' s " Huguenot" declining to accept from his betrothed a Itoman Catholic badgers the master-piece of the Exhibition ; excellent in design , brilliant enough to put out the light of every other painting in the place , —except Millais ' s other—Opholia , in the " weeping brook , " w horo s died her " muddy death , "—a most literal and a most beautiful copy oi Shakespeare ' s Ophelia . Moro of our controversy with this chiei ot tno to ut

    PrjB-ltapliaolito brothren hereafter . He is a strong man , and lit » painter , which no weak man is . Hunt is worthy to bo his companion , witness " Tho Hireling Shepherd , " in spite of its flustered , bnclcdu ^ cheeks : but Hunt has not dono so well this year as he did Jast , in « ' » " Two Gontlomon of Verona ; " —there is not less of manner , therei is lcsof idoa . Tho visitor will not pass , as wo have , Harding s W ^ r Palace , " next to Millais ' s Ophelia , a monument to illustrate «> riysl 0 " v tho barbarism of tho destroying Manners . Nor will ho pass Macneot * portrait of Douglas Jcrrold—welcome once moro to the weekly F . « s ' nor Gooaall ' s " Last Load , " though it is not his most animated pictui ^ In tho Miniature , Tliorburn , as usual , rules supremo ; but a boWOX * 0 of morit is appearing in tho youngor men , amongst whom wo may Wolls . The sculpture is not in any way overpowering .

    Exhibition Of The Amateur Society, A Sma...

    EXHIBITION OF THE AMATEUR SOCIETY , A small room contains 202 works , hung on tho walls and on tvro scr . » mostly of tho character of hasty water-colour sketches . It is " » wj m % to boo evidonco that an elegant accomplishment is . pursued Jnrfe J eHi sncocBsfully by dilettanti ladios and gentlemen of tho ' easy ^ In many of the sketches wo discern much natural power , ana sp" . j like Miss Blake , Mrs . Budgman Simpson , and Mr . Thomas M-Maon * can work ns well as profossonal artistB . But the Amateurs Jiavci » i forth their atrongtk : there is nothing to xnato with tlio cngravou whicli some few nave published .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 8, 1852, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08051852/page/22/