THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION OF 1839.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1424, 15 June 1899, Page 12

THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION OF 1839.

(“London Weekly Times”). “Sculpture good; portraits and landscapes up to the average; figure subjects somewhat below it”—such will he the general verdict on the Academy of 1899. It is.unfortunate that a rather unusual number of the best- men are either at sen.tees or have been unable to finish their principal works, as is believed to have been the case with Mr Dicksce, Mr Abbey, Mr J. W. Waterhouse, Mr Swan, Mr Henry Woods, Mr Stanhope Forbes, and some others. This is to a certain extent the case with Mr Sargent also, whose work for the Boston Public Library lias demanded the greater part of his time, so that the large portrait group in which he was more or less to have competed with Millais and Sir Joshua is no. yet' toady' for exhibition. Still, Mr Sargent shows four portraits of ladies, three of them first rate, so that perhaps "we must not complain. But it need not be to the pictures that the visitor will turn first, for what arrests his notice on entering is. Mr Thornycroft’s colossal figure of Cromwell, of which the bronze casting is about to take its place in the garden of Westminster Hall (not, as the catalogue says, near Westminster Townhall). The Protector stands lost in thought, his great square head sunk upon his breast; his right hand leans upon .his drawn sword ; his left holds a Bible, and his hat is crushed under.'his arm. i'e--haps such a figure scarcely represents a sufficiently active belligerent to please Dr Parker and the orators of the City Temple, who would have preferred to see the Protector in. the. act of hewing. Agag in pieces ; but this more sober Cromwell is quite as near .to the Cromwell of history, and is certainly a nobler figure for the eye to rest upon. The statue is, as far as Mr Thornycroft is concerned, a worthy successor to his “Gordon”; it

lias the same grandeur of line, the same way the sense of a character that derives a more than human force from its meditations upon the Unseen. We may briefly mention Mr Ford’s very fine bust of the Queen (a commision from her Majesty) ; Mr Brock’s effigy of the late Archbishop Benson, the marble of which is intended for Canterbury Cathedral; the very clever and original marble “Elf” of' the new A.R.A., Mr Goscombe John ; and the beautiful “Mors Janua Vitas”, a

group in ivory and bro-nxe by the late Harry Bates, whoso early death recently dealt .so serious a blow to English sculpture.

The Academy is full of the Diamond Jubilee. In three of the most conspicuous “centres”, we have three competing pictures of tho self-same scene—the service oil the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, when Her Majesty halted to hear the “To Dc-urn'’ and the ' Benediction. Mr John Charlton, who made a capital picture cf the procession of 1887, has now painted a much larger one of its successor for the Queen; it hangs in Room IV. Mr Gow, who draws horses so well and revels in scenes of brilliant' sunlight, lias painted precisely the same subject for the Corporation Gallery at Guildhall; while an Italian artist. Signor Gennaro D’Amato, has repeated the theme for some destination which is not specified. As we go from one of these pictures to the other, we pass through tho Third Room, where we expect to find the principal “ pictures of the year” gathered together. Although in a sense this expectation is fulfilled—for here are the Poynt'er, the Tadema. the principal Orchardson, and one of the best Sargents—-in another respect the room is a great disappointment. We must frankly say that we have never seen so poor a row/ of .pictures .occupying the principal “line”-m the Royal Academy as those which now fill this famous north wall. Mr Alma-Tadema’s picture, which is or sufficient size to claim a “centre” hi the principal room— it hangs in good company', between a § argent and an Orchardson—is his long-planned and mu.ch-spokeu-cf “Baths of -Caracalia.” j The vast ruins of those baths, destroyed net so much by barbarians as by vandal Popes, who despoiled the old civilisation to build their churches, are even now one of the. wonders of Xtomo. The whole effect is gay ar d_ charming, and the. picture will certainly be among the most popular, or the painter’s Roman works. We may add that it ip, as a whole, a wonderful piece of* srehseological reconstruction. Mr Abbey lias been forced to suspend his . Shakespearian scries for the time, for his comparatively small and slight picture “Who is Sylvia?” is a mere excursion into the Shakesperian field. His principal canvas, Florentine in. costume, and showing us some passionate Romeo talking with a- reluctant ladylove, has for title the line of the song, “O mistress mine, where are you roaming r” It shows, like everything of Mr Abbey’s, a fine decorative sense, great power cf drawing the figure, and much nobility of colour. Mr La Thangue sends four' admirable pictures, of which “Love in the Harvest Field*’ is the largest and most important, hut'“Cider Apples” perhaps . the best. These, like everything that comes from his hand, are‘ the work of a man who lives among the scenes ho paints, and who. paints “with his eye on Hie object.” '/Sfr Hpok, that ye|evan whose hand happily preserves its vigour unimpaired, has two capital coast scenes, and has even .ventured upon, a, portrait of his son; Mr Peter Graham and Mr MacWhirter face one another in the first room with characteristic pictures, the on© of “A Rising Tide,” Hie. other cf “Dark Lock Corttlsk”; Mr; Davis, - who draws with the skrne precision and paints with the same sparkling touch as of old, sends five pictures, one of them a scene on the Wye, a redeeming point in .thpt unfortunate line in Room 111. to.which we have referred already. There are also several works by Mr Leader, -including his diploma picture. And if the seniors are thus active their young er brethren among the associates are even more so; Mr David Murray especially with numerous large canvases leading up to a vast Scotch river scene, painted on a square canvas as though to secure the commanding “centre” which it lias obtained; Mr Alfred East, of equal facility and equal popularity with him, and Mr Napier Hemy, whose excellent picture of the sea is perhaps surpassed by the three first-rate drawings which he lias sent .to the Water-colour Room, .