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    Untitled Article

    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 of 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 exhibition ? ... t

    Take the instance of injustice to Mr . Millais first , because it is the mosremarkable of alL His noble picture of " The Rescue" is hung next to a doorpost a bad place for an artist in any case ; and a bad place also for the public in the case of Mr . Millais . For , half of the spectators—who will crowd round his picture in spite of Academicians and critics—are exposed to be jostled incessantly by 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 that ever was made . Mr . Millais has , it seems , been too daringly true to nature in painting the glare of the fire from which the children have been rescued . The red glow suffusing one-half of the composition would , it is said , be fatal to any conventionally-painted picture placed beside it , and could only be toned down to due Academic propriety by being set against a doorpost ! Even if Mr . Millais were not an associate-member of the Royal Academy , we should say this excuse was a bad one , because it implies that a picture is not to be its tr naturebut by its

    judged , in the first place and before all things , by uthjp , 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 . Millais is a Member of the Academy , and the body which has elected him has , by the act of election , bound itself to do him justicebound itself 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 eminence enough in their profession to deserve election . Has the A * ademy acted up to this principle with Mr . Millais ? Let any one who thinks so go into the West Room , and look at two pictures , numbered 631 and 640 , by two gentlemen , named respectively Earles and Gale ; and it will be found that these works , by painters out of the Academy , and little , if at all , 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 purpose . The plain truth of the case is , that Mr . Millais has been too successful . He is a young man ( which is in itself a fault in the eyes of a great many pompous old gentlemen)—he has made an immense reputation—and his Criticism t write

    pictures find eager purchasers at extraordinary prices . can him 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 , next to a dingy bit of wood—and to make the admirers of his works as uncomfortable as possible , 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 have succeeded . But he has chosen a subject which interests everybody ; he has treated it in 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 consequently 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

    background . Again : where 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 . Herbert ' s " Lear and Cordelia" is the work we refer to . Lear is the conventional Old Academy model , with the devout eyes , the j'ellow complexion , and the patriarchal beard . Cordelia stares at him , with no expression whatever in her face ; and the " Physician" stands behind with the air of a beggar waiting for his half-penny . Excluding Mr . Hebbkrt , 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 pay that Mr . Herbert 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 S . incho 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 . Ego'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 ot " 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 , has one of his pictures ( Number-1375 ) plucetl 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 painting the artist has produced j welcomed by the Academy with as bad a place as they could find for it . We might quote treble this number of examples of the 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 the picturo-seerB in London—sent in a drawing to tho Exhibition this year , and has . had that drawing turned out ! . Who , then , has got" tho good places ? We have already mentioned that Mr . Heiujkrt has secured the best position in the best room for himself . Ho has also taken one of tho two first-rate central positions in tho Middle Room for an imbecile caricature , which is called " Horace Vcrnet . " Mr . Leh and Mr . Abraham

    Cooper ( also Hangers ) have excellent places for some of the 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 sub ^ ject—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 4 p $ her gentlemen whose pictures hang fraternally side by side , in prominent places and admirable lig h ts , 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 the with

    Vessel under-conduct of an Angel , coming over Waves 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 Flanging 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 .

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    ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA . Tub 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 mistake .

    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 noillionnaire 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 , lias 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 Herb 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 Herr 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 audience on Thursday last .

    By coupling the name of Verdi with that of Wagner , our contemporary seems to imply that we admire Verdi because of some supposed political tendency of his music . But we meant nothing of the kind . Verdi lias 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 insurgents . Nor did we presume for a moment to apologise for his ' -bad harmony" or his " boisterous and shrill unisons , " which we leave to the tender mercies of our contemporary , to whose judgment in such matters we bow with all humility . We wish with all our heart that Verdi were a Beethovf . n ; he would not hate tyranny or love his country less for having all the genius and all the science of that harmonious giant . But taking him as he is , we recognise in his operas , notably in tne Trovatore , that power of swaying the emotions of a vast audience winch is a very tolerable substitute for genius . Vekdi is at least the national composer ot Italy—but of Italy agitated , tumultuous , impatient of repose and rule . > ? calmer and brighter days come , we may trust that the music of future Italy will be something more melodious than Wagner , and more scientific and composed

    than Verdi . , ., ., But wo are forgetting tho Trovatore . Wo shall not attempt to describe tne argument of this opera , for the simple reason that wo have never been ante to understand who was who , or which was which , in the drama . But there is ft drama , terrible enough , with striking situations and effective tableaiiw mere is an opportunity for Mr . Bisverley in the mountain scenery , the gipsy camp , and tho fortress ; there is picturesque costume and grouping , and organ music with choir in the distance . Tharo is love , passion , vengeance , joy , surprise , terror , desperation , parting , death . , Madame Viardot , to whose ever zealous co-operation and generous am in ino production of the opera much of the success wo believe is due , was Hear iiiy welcomed by the audience when nho rose from her couch among her wild comrades , as the gipsy Azucena . This admirable artist , tins esteemed and respecttu lady , is a constant example of tho true nobleness and dignity of art . She took the part of Azucena at Paris at an extraordinarily short now * , and gave to it quite u new importance , but she has uow made it a llnisiR !< 1 ' personation , worthy to tako a place in her gallery . Her " drapery U a . pt - petual study and delight to tho sculptor , her look * , her gestures to the diiunuiwonthusiast , her singing to all who can enjoy the perfect use tuul mastery oi tho resources of the most accomplished art . . . f Mademoiselle Jknnx Nev , who , wo have hoard , know abso utely notii ng tho opera , score or libretto , when she camo to England , astonished tho ftUUII r by her porforrnaneo of Leonora . Wo confess wo had entertained * PP ™ ™?™ of her success in tho part , and wo had been inclined to regret Madlle . ¦*« " »» ' even at tho sacrifice of all but the singing . But never were wo more agrees /

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    4 £ 2 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 12, 1855, page 452, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2090/page/20/