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Leader (1850-1860), 24th May 1856, Edition 2 of 2, Page 19

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      Im W . T _ ^ — J The Productive Forces O...

      metallic resources of his country , the chemical factories , the potteries and glass-houses , ^ means and facilities of transit for goods , the mode of ¦ conducting business , —all illustrate the state of practical science in Russia , and in some degree the manners of the people , and show how backward she still is in all those acquirements which can propei-ly stimulate and develop the infinite branches into which industry and . enterprise may be divided and subdivided . . "

      May 24, 1856.] Theiieaber. 499

      May 24 , 1856 . ] THEIiEABER . 499

      Ancient And Modern India. India, Ancient...

      ANCIENT AND MODERN INDIA . India , Ancient and Modern . By David O . Allen , D . D . Trubner and Co . D » . Ali ^ en has compiled a work of great utility , and one that was much wanted . Though written especially for an American public , it will prove not less acceptable to the public of this country . The worthy divine apologises in some sort for taking up a subject which , he imagines , must be already familiar to English readers , and excuses himself by alluding to the very limited views concerning India and its inhabitants usually entertained in the United States . The apology would have been quite unnecessary had he even contemplated exclusive circulation in England , where such profound ignorance prevails on all Indian matters unconnected with curry and the Bengal tiger . This ignorance will , no doubt , give way now that the attention of the Legislature is so frequently directed to the internal administration

      of the British empire in the East . But so much prejudice prevails , so much . passion has been exhibited with reference to the government of the East India Company , » that it has been hitherto impossible to obtain a- calm , unbiassed view of the progress of European power in the East , and of the relative position of the conquerors and the conquered . This want is at last supplied . In about six hundred pages of clear type and pleasant reading , Dr . Allen has succeeded in giving a succinct and highly-interesting narrative of the three great periods of Indian history—the Hindoo , the Mahommedan , and the European . His outline of the external aspect of the country , its climate and natural productions , imparts as much information as the general reader usually seeks to obtain . His account of the Government of India is accurate and impartial . He gives praise where praise is due , and pleads many extenuating circumstances to excuse the shortcomings of the Honourable Company . Perhaps , to the majority of readers , the most interesting portion of his work is that which treats of the religion , manners , customs , institutions , and literature of the native population , while not a few will turn with anxious curiosity to his experiences of Christianity in that distant land . In short , it is the most complete compendium of matters relating to India that has yet appeared .

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      Allegory In The Ominous War Of Elements,...

      allegory in the ominous war of elements , or , perchance , some excessive simplicity which would read its own moral . Mr . Poole feels the subject ; but he " fumbles" at the treatment , like a man not too familiar with glens , conspiracies , or wild passions . The force has to be supplied in another mode , and here it is done by a rough texture . There sit the three conspirators in rockygloom ; the very pigments shaken into broken atoms , which make the picture ' resemble an irregular mosaic , and impart a certain degree of turbid uncertainty to the painting : but difficulty of deciphering the meaning or the forms of an tU ICl iiiv

      XllObUllLai piUtUlC XO UUb CL [ UX V CLL ^ Lllj lllj' O ^ 1 " *^ ( JlUiJi The telling of a story does not consist only in introducing human figures , whose particular pursuit may be rendered intelligible . Mr . Frith must this year be accounted amongst those hitherto rising artists who have decidedlysunk to the prosaical , and who take a matter-ot' -fact to be a matter worth expositing . We do not say this of a picture numbered 7 , " A Dream of the Future , " in which there is a pretty country girl that may be dreaming about anything at a stile in the midst of " landscape by T . Creswick .. " The picture belongs to the class of decoration , and would be a very pretty ornament in any tasteful dining-room . We speak rather of the picture described , " Many happy returns of the Day , " in which a happy couple is seated at a birthday dinnertable , to celebrate the first or second anniversary of the youngest in the party ; while a servant is bringing in toys for his delectation , and grandpapa , who sits a little aloof , is joining in the toast . Now here we have an English couple in good circumstances , with half a dozen extremely pretty children , a very handsome

      and " aristocratical -looking grandpapa , and altogether a model iamiiy , such as might be found at Mornington Villas or Lansdowne Gardens , in any of the higher-rented houses of the best London suburbs . But what then ? There is no very striking incident ; there is no very remarkable trait of character in any of the persons . The still life is not faultless , nor is there anything but the most superficial exhibition of the c 6 Vnmonest , though not discreditable , feelings which may be found under the roof of any Paterfamilias . Paterfamilias himself can supply quite as good a picture once a year if his income will permit him . Nothing could give value to the picture unless it consisted of portraits , and then the portraits would be valued onl y in the particular family . There is not a single human being in Hunt ' s painting of " The Scapegoat , " and yet there is human interest , and something more than human . He has ; taken the custom of the Jews , who adorned a goat , loaded it with the sins of the people , and drove it forth into the wilderness , thinking that they should gain some immunity by that sacrifice . Here , then , is the creattire driven forth , stumbling and staggering to the salt desert , where it is brought b y weariness to a stand—the melancholy of death in its eyes , helplessness in its limbs , thirst in its anxious mouth , and a wonderful brightness of the setting sun glancing on its hairy hide . It has strayed into a sinking ground on the border of the salt sea ; skeletons surround it . It is a perfect type of innocence and helplessness , sent to die for the superstition , the senseless selfishness , the ignorance and ^» -iio 1 * -t 7- nf tVin nonnlo a ear * rifi r > a rtf nnxr r \ av nnd nnv Tllaf !*? . The COlOUrinST is VfirV

      EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY . THE STORY-TELLING POAVEK . If the picture is not a mirror it is a story ; and it rises in the scale of art in proportion as it is a story . You judge , then , of a school in proportion as it is able to set before you the story that it professes to unfold ; and the question of this week is , What tale doth the Royal Academy unfold—what are the several 11 AAKfll

      powerful . The pigments are so employed that their contrast , or their translucence one through the other , gives the exact points of light reflected from different surfaces with different colours ; and this artful use of the pigments results in bringing to eye the exact tints , the very substances , and the light of the sun itself . We except the extreme background , which is harsh and violent . The hues marked upon the rocks and sky by tlie setting sun are not too positive , but too little uniform and sweeping in their texture . When such prismatic colours are reflected by mountain or cloud in southern climes , they are seen in great sweeps , and the slight breaks of local form or colour are submerged in the deluge of brilliancy . But the picture is one of great power , both in the force of its colours , in the portrayal of animal character , and in the great oiuutniiroia

      4 / CU ^ O fl lli ^ ll AlrO VjUllbllMUtUlO U T V \ t \ M IV . " ~ tM * V * VAVS llltj' U . U ± \ j I JL 11 Ul L aS IXA politics and in social matters , men seem at present not ; very settled in their purpose ; they differ among each other—they have no distinct shape of plan for themselves . The pencil vacillates between the conservatism of the studio , the ¦" good old plan" of doing things , and some subversive " new idea , " which makes the established forms look pale and insipid , unsettles sequacious minds , and yet does not exactly succeed in appointing its own Provisional Government . In the collection of this year , increased numbers are seen to be following Millais or the Naturalist school , which has sprung out of the prrc-Raphaelitcs ; out Frost still pursues his cold licentious study of life among supposititious boarding-school nymphs ; Guan 7 still paints dashing portraits comma il fdut ; O'Neill gives us gentle diagrams of touching incidents , and the balance of power proceeds with as regular a diplomacy as a Royal Academy dinner . Perhaps the most striking change of the story telling is in the negative

      direcmoral story wnicn me illustration eniorces . 11 xiujma « « - , u , great painter . If this is what he means to Jinish with , he is but a part of a painter ; though a better part than most of the mere limners whose finished failures surround him . We might use the same words in speaking of Millais , who has , however attained to a far greater degree of finish than IIunt . Millais exhibits five pictures : —" Peace concluded , 185 G ; " " Portrait of a Gentleman ; " " Autumn Leaves ; " " L'Enfant du Regiment ; " and " The Blind Girl . " Four of these ought properly to be classed as studies ; and , accepted as such , they are full of power and beauty . The " Portrait of a Gentleman" is the portrait of a little child—a bold outlooking boj r , of whom we conceive that we have here the exact facsimile . And when you remember how difficult it is practically to comprehend and to seize that expression of latent faculties and purpose which you see in the straightforward look of a young and resolute boy , you will understand _ 1 . _ i _ . ___! .. J * Y _ . 1 . 1 il . .. .. t . Z ± . ... _ . ~* . •^ -. ^ — n ^ Im »* i It 11 w" * tii r ^ 4 * rfi aiiu

      4 rlUlJ . TTiljAI £ i piCOCULUU J'UU . 1 CU 1 Aftll ^ , LS 14 U > TAbBX tl U 11 J 31 JI \ J L J 1 UI 11 UU 1 Xll It . Websteb has gradually devoted himself to portraying you real life as it may be caught any moment of the day when nothing particular is going forward . This year his " Hide and Seek" is the simplest scene in a cottage , where one child hides from another outside , while mother and sister at their domestic duties give a passing glance at the sport . It is a pretty scene , but the artist ' s share is little more than that of a looking-glass : there is not much to tell AInsdell ' s " Browsers' holla" is also a . matter-of-fact—the gamekeeper tending . the young fauns ; but the open scene , the active forms of the youthful deer , the play of character , demand a more animated pencil on a subject less hackneyed : there is more to tell , and the story rouses a greater interest . JTor in painting it is not always the eventfulness , but the suggestion of life , and of the capacity for meeting events which makes the subject of the picture interesting . Thus the " Gipsy Water-carrier of Seville , " by Philip , succeeds so well in putting before you a creature full of life—handsome , Hynwnetrieul , elender sharp in action , yet graceful—that the form is like the volume of a stirring tale unopened . The spectator has a sense of power both in the painter and in his subject . l \ l 4 "H * 1 A l f ^ Itn ^ 41 k S"V Aij / iidwt ^ ^¦ rtll dll Y \ f \ 1 \ T Til 4 *\ ^~ y vrslai 4- + *» 1 * -h j-i r * -v »* «** % t *^* n 4 1 s ~ v 1 l Mfrf 1

      . .. . witUL ll iiiasiury 01 nauu imu uyu liiu uilibu niuot yjuaaisaa . xaumuu uu Regiment" is a very small picture ; a child who lias been sitting upon a monument , has fallen back asleep , and is covered with a soldier ' s coat . You may guess it to be the son , or daughter , of a dead soldier , whose comrades are thus taking care of the orphan . The patch of coloured clothing on the stone monument , with a graceful form almost hidden by the covering , constitutes what painters call a " bit , " perhaps worth preserving , but too small to be prized much . It is to a real picture what an epigram upon some small subject is to a work . " Autumn Leaves" is altogether a higher class of work . It is the portrait of four girls , who are burning up the dead leaves of a garden in the twilight of an autumn evening ; serious girls , intent upon their labour , with an expression that harmonizes to the sombre hues of the foliage around them . The whole picture is grave ; the tints perhaps too heavy ; the colouring of the hair , where , as in some lights a line of brighter tint marks the contour , is one of the accidents of effect which it may be well to remember if a use be found for it , though it is too strunyenot to suggest its own purpose . " The Blind Girl" is a study of a perfectly different class . It is a wandering musician , wlio . se sight is gone ; she has heated herself by the roadside , in a ,.... » r . « ... F a I ** * r * if t- iftriiii / i n tr fin n tn > t * rvnii mi ii win \ r I m 1 (^ k 1 . 4 lii'r . and is sheltered

      *^ * * - ^ V * AO 111 bAItlU IjIIU

      under her cloak , looks back at the horizon , where the storm is passing away and the arch of hope appears . The power of the painter is here seen in the powerful drawing , and not less powerful colouring , with which ho has caught the . entire manner of the blind : the limbs unconcentrated in their action by eyesight , —the uplifted countenance , the abstracted , but not desponding- look , are contrasted with the animate action , though in repose of the younger girl . The spectator will observe with interest how the painter has copied , in the grassy rising ground behind , every variety of form , the endless breaks on the surface , the truth of the perspective through almost ceaseless changes of outline , the grades of tint , the gentle gradations which in the space almost of a few hairs breadth convey the effect of long distance towurds the background . Hero again , as in the whole of the school once pric-Kuphaelite , wo find that the tints of the distance are much too harsh , positive , and angular;—an error which will , perhaps , bo corrected by t , he study of their grejit rival , the photograph . We have called those four pictures 8 tudies , - because the artist hus to a great

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 24, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24051856/page/19/