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    452 THE LEADER. [Saturday,

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    THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION. We referre...

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    ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. The decided and bri...

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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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    452 The Leader. [Saturday,

    452 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

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    The Royal Academy Exhibition. We Referre...

    THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION . We referred last week to the flagrant instances of injustice and incompetence which the arrangements of this year ' Hanging Committee display in every part of the Exhibition ; and we engaged at the earliest opportunity to enter into some detail in connexion with the placing of the pictures . The subject is of importance beyond the world of Art ; for the bad hanging and the public dissatisfaction with the present display at the Academy , stand more nearly towards each other in the relation of cause and effect than might at first be imagined . It is very easy this year to see the mediocre pictures by men ot no mark , and very hard-except in some half dozen cases—to see the fine pictures by men with reputations . When bad artists are well placed who can expect that visitors , who want to see good pictures , should be pleased with the eX Tak t e ihe instance of injustice to Mr . Millais first , because it is the most remarkable of alL His noble picture of " The Rescue" is hung next to * doorpost -a bad place for an artist in any case ; and a bad place also for the public in the * ' - * t £ - tvt ™ r » T T ?« r half of the sDectators—who will crowd round Ins

    pic-—^ SB Cooper ( also Hangers ) have excellent places for some of the wor st pictures they have either of them ever painted ; and that is saying a great deal . Wretched portraits of unknown people are for the most part conspicuously hung . Mr . A . Johnstone paints a perfectly conventional picture of a perfectly exhausted subject Mary Queen of Scots—and gets a much better place than Mr . Millais . Mr Gale and Mr . Earles we have already mentioned as occupying first-rate positions . There are two ^ her gentlemen whose pictures hang fraternally side by side , in prominent plaetes and admirable lights , but whose names we never heard of before , and whose works we hope never to see again . One is a Mr . Woodington , who plagiarises from Flaxman , and paints ( in whitewash ) "A Vessel underconduct of an Angel , coming over the Waves with Spirits to Purgatory " The other , a Mr . Wingfield , who is not quite so senseless in his choice of subject as Mr . Woodington , but whose picture of " Summer Hill in the Time of Charles the Second , " exhibits most of the faults that a painter ought to avoid and none of the merits that a spectator desires to see . Need we add other instances to these ? Surely not . If we have failed to make out our case sufficiently against the Hanging Committee , we can only assure our readers that they may easily complete it for themselves by looking around any one of the exhibition rooms which they may please to enter . Next week we hope to be able to notice the pictures more in detail .

    = £ reinspieofAcademiciansand critics-are exposed to be jostled incessantly & the persons passing in and out of the doorway . The excuse for causing this discomfort to the public , and inflicting this injustice on the artist , is the lamest Sat Tver was made . Mr . Mimjlis has , it seems , been to ° ? f ^ l yJ ^ e to nature in painting the glare of the fire from which the children have been rescued ThTred glow suffusing one-half of the composition would , it is said be fata ? to anyTonventionally-pahfted picture placed beside it , and could only ^ be toned dowl to due Academic propriety by being set against ^ doorposU Even if Mr . Miixais were not an associate-member of the Royal Academy , we snouia LythifScuse was a bad one , because it implies that a picture » not to be judged , in the first place and before all things , by its truth _ to Pature > b <* 7 " capacity for temporarily adapting itself to other pictures , which are themselves , being estimated by this conventional principle , as likely to be wrong as right . But Mr MirZus is a Member of the Academy , and the body which has elected him has . by the act of election , bound itself to do him justicetonditodf to believe in and to vindicate the excellence of his pictures-bound itself to give them better places than the pictures of men who have not attained Iminence enough in their profession to deserve election Has the ^ feademy acted up to this principle with Mr . Millais ? Let any one VhTthinks so go into the West Room , and look at two pictures , numbered 631 and 640 , by t # o gentlemen , named respectively Earles and Gale ; and it will be found that these works , by painters out of the Academy , and little , ifatall ^ known to the general public , occupy better places than the place accorded to " The Rescue" We might multiply instances—but these two are enough for the purjSse The plai / truth of the case is , that Mr . Millajs has been too succSsful . He is a young man ( which is in itself a fault m the eyes of a great many pompous old gentlemen )_ he has made an immense reputation-and his Sures find eager purchasers at extraordinary prices . Criticism can't write hS down , professional rivals can ' t talk him down . The last resource is to try a good sturdy , uncompromising doorpost—to hang his picture in a bad light , neK to a dinS bit of wood-and to make the admirers of his works as uncomfortable L poSnUe , by exposing one half of them to be well jostled by the passers . to and fro through a doorway If Mr . Millais had addressed himself to a class instead of to the whole public , this ingenious plan might h ™ """ g ^* * g he has chosen a subject which interests everybody ; he has treated it m a startlingly original way ; he has painted the glare from a great fire , red-hot , scorching , dazzling , fearful as it really is ; he has cast behind him all theatrical and academical conventionalities , has let Nature lead him , and has gone straight to the hearts of the people . The great doorpost conspiracy against him is conse" fluently an utter failure . He has got the place of honour in the public estimation , in spite of the worst that the Academy could do to prevent him . If our readers doubt it , we recommend them to look at the faces of the spectators who stand in front of " The Rescue" the next time they go to the Royal Academy . Before that criticism on the picture , all other criticisms must retire into the ^ SinTwh ere is Mr . Leslie ' s exquisite scene from " Don Quixote" hung ? In one of the central positions of honour ? Nothing of the sort . The best place on the best wall in the best room has been delicately and disinterestedly taken by a member of the Hanging Committee for one of his own pictures . Mr . Herbem ' b " Lear and Cordelia" is the work we refer to . Lear is the conventional Old Academy model , with the devout eyes , the yellow complexion , and the patriarchal beard . Cordelia stares at him , with no expression whatever m her face ; and the " Physician" stands behind with the air of a beggar waiting for his half-penny . Excluding Mr . Herbert , and his Hanging coadjutors , will any man with eyes in his head look at this picture and then at Mr . Leslie ' s , and deny that the two canvases ought to have changed places ? Will any reader of Shakspearo say that Mr . Herbickt has given us the King Lear of the great poet ? , and will any reader of Cervantes say that Mr . Leslie has not given us the Sancho of the great humourist ? Let us leave this case , and take a few more , placing them all together for the sake of economising space . Mr . Egg ' s beautiful composition from one of Moore ' s Melodies is hung in so bad a light that its true effect is fatally damaged . Mr . Solomon , whose pictures of " The First Class" and " The Second Class" were among the prominent attractions of last year ' exhibition , has a picture this year hung so high that , in common justice to the artist , we must decline even attempting to criticise it . Mr . Stanjfield has one of the most elaborate works he has painted , placed in the worst position we ever remember seeing one of his pictures occupy . Mr . J . Philip , whose representations of Spanish life and character delighted everybody , from the Queen downwards , last year , haB one of his pictures ( Number-1375 ) pluced in the Octagon Room this year . In the same " condemned cell" is a small study by Mr C . A . Collins ( Number 1334)—the best piece of earnest conscientious pain tin" the artist has produced ; welcomed by the Academy with as bad a place as they could find for it . We might quote treble this number of exnmpleB of tho injustice and incompetency of the Hanging Committee—but wo prefer closing the list abruptly with one remarkable fact in connexion with the works ' not hung at all in tho present exhibition . Mr . Holman Hunt—whose "Light of tho World" was a general subject of argument and conversation a year ago among all tho picturG-BeerB in London—sent in a drawing to tho Exhibition this year , und has . had that drawing turned out ! . < ,, *¦»* Who , then , has got' tho good places ? We have already mentioned that Mr . Herbert has secured the best position in the beat room for himself . Ho haa also taken one of the two first-rate central positions in tho Middle Room for an imbecile caricature , which is called " Horace Vcrnet . " Mr . Lek and Mr . Abraham

    Royal Italian Opera. The Decided And Bri...

    ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA . The decided and brilliant success of // Trovatore on Thursday , may be said to have broken the ice of the operatic season . For the first time the audience was really moved , and at certain moments a thrill of sympathy shot through the house , and made " the whole world" of stalls and boxes , pit and amphitheatre , " kin" After hearing the opera in Paris , we were quite prepared for its extraordinary reception in London . It has nearly all the elements of success with a public that demands excitement and emotion , and cheerfully foregoes the more subtle satisfactions of contrapuntal skill . In the Trovatore , though the story is even more hopelessly unintelligible than libretti in general , there is abundance of energy and passion , of the thrilling and the melting quality , and any audience more able and more disposed to feel than to criticise is enthusiastically content to be " carried away" by the tones that vibrate on the universal chord . As a fair and conscientious representative of the ignorant and sensuous musical mob , we beg leave to thank M . Verdi for an evening of unfeigned and unforced enjoyment . We leave to the learned to assign to him Ms rank in the art , and to prove by all the canons that his reputation is a According to our philosophy , life is too short and too full of labour and sorrow to spare us time to be bored , even for the benefit of high art ; and as , now-a-days , Art is , after all , a market , and the artist has to live by his art , he must needs adapt himself to the state of the market and to the general demand . OnCe a century or so there comes a man who creates a demand , but , with very rare exceptions , only a millionnaire or a maniac will undertake to persuade the public that amusement and gratification are not the highest aims of art . We say this , because a contemporary ( the Musical World ) , whom we always read with pleasure , and sometimes , we trust , with profit , has taken us somewhat strictly to task for a remark we had the evil courage to make on the music of Verdl Our friendly but austere contemporary , however , has , unintentionally no doubt , misinterpreted us . We have no sort of right to be called " a stanch adherent of Hekb Wagner ; " we have never written a word in his praise , and we have so little appreciation of those perpetual recitatives which are supposed to be the destiny of the millennial music , that we can only rejoice that they are reserved for some very future age ' s applause . Certainly , we respect even the eccentricities of Herk Wagner , but no amount of novelty in his music will reconcile us to the absence of all melody in his compositions We like that good old-fashioned notion of music—a tune . What a heretic Herr Wagner would call us if we assured him that we enjoyed the Trovatore without understanding a word of the drama ! And this was the case with two-thirds of the ^ rcoup Sng ^ if / nJrof Verdi with that of NVagneb , our contemporary seems to imply that we admire Verdi because of some supposed P ° l't » caltendency of his music . But we meant nothing of the kind Verdi l . as been the delight of all Europe , from Rome to St . Petersburg , and his operas have been played by imperial orchestras , as well as bawled by patriotic insuresn s Nor did we presume for a moment to apologise for his " bad harmony ' J"f *^ " £ ? and shrill unisons , " which we leave to the tender mercies of our contci » " ««[* to whose judgment in such matters we bow with all humility . We vi > wjttt all our heart that Verih were a Beethovf . n ; he would not "a ^ 'y ™""^ . ' !^ his country less for having all the genius and all the science of th * Ja « nomoufl giant . But taking him as he is , we recognise in his operas "Otably ii tHe Trovatore that power of swaying the emotions of a vast audience wlneli is a Z ^^ Sab te substitute for genius . Verdi is at least the nationaI composer of Italy-but of Italy agitated , tumultuous , impatient ot repose an 1 ru c . Vvnon calmer and brighter clays come , we may trust that the music ° f . ^ " ^ ^ J be something more melodious than Wagner , and more scientific and composed tb BuSo « forgetting the Trovatore . We shall not attempt to dewribe tto argument of this opera , for the simple reason that we have » evc * Jl ^ ro fc a understand who was who , or which was which , in the drama . Uut there A ft drama , terrible enough , with striking situat . ons and elective table * us inc is an opportunity for Mr . Beverley in the mountain scenery , tl > c g . p y ca mg and the fortress ; there is picturesque costume and grouping , and orga .. mus with choir in the distance . Thsro is love , passion , vengeance , joy , suiprwu , terror , desperation , parting , death . _„ ... „ lli ( i jn the Madame Viaruot , to whose ever zealous co-operation and generoini in production of the opera much of the succe-s we believe is i ue , «« is ^ « * welcomed by the audience when « ho rose from her couch among 1 ^"'^ d rades , as the gipsy Azucena . This admirable artist , tins esteemed and respect lady , is a constant example of tho true nobleness and dignity ot ^ t . ( She took the part of Azucena at Pans at an extraordinarily hh i oi ^ , and gave to it quite a new importance , but she has now <»™ ° «» ' ^ . personation , worthy to take a place in her gallery 1 Icr . " j ^ Xtho dramatic petual stud } and delight to the sculptor , her look * , her gest ires to ^ the M ,. u enthusiast , her singing to all who can enjoy the perfect use und mastery o tho resources of the most accomplished art . i ., * oiv nothing of Mademoiselle Jenn * Nkv , who , we have heard knew abso utely n « v ng the opera , score or libretto , when she came to England , astoimhcet ho i » by her performance of Leonora . We confess we had entertained aj ^* - of her success in tho part , and wo had been inclined to regret Mud £ * Wy ' oven at tho sacrifice of all but tho singing . But never were wo more ngrc

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 12, 1855, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12051855/page/20/