EXHIBITION OF NEW SOCIETY IN WATER COLOURS.
Generally speaking, this Society is mostly ambitious of carrying water colour to its greatest possible depth and power, and certainly, in this respect, the attainment is wondrous. In design, and other character, this society more than keeps its ground. We remember last year noticing Miss Setchell's little picture, as one of the best of the year; we have still a perfect recollection of the most lovely pathetic expression of the poor girl. We were greatly disappointed that no work of Miss Setchell adorns the walls. There is a picture, however, which, if it did not move us equally, at once arrested our attention, and again and again did we return to it. The character of it is not certainly moving, as Miss Setchell's, it is altogether of a different cast—it is one for thought and manly contemplation. The subject is "Cromwell and Ireton intercepting a letter of Charles the First," by L. Haghe. Cromwell is standing reading a letter—Ireton adjusting the saddle in the recess of a window, near which Cromwell stands, is a table with a flagon, the scene is an inn in Holborn. The attitude of Cromwell is dignified ease and resolution. In his fine countenance we read the full history of the "coming events"—we see all there, that we have learned from history. The very curtains and stick seem to the imagination's eye convertible into canopy and sceptre. There is great forbearance in the painting—we mean that there is just enough, and no more, of water-colours' ambition. More depth would have injured the effect. It is a very striking picture; well finished, and with a breadth suited to the historical importance of the history. Mr Warren's "Christ's Sermon" is of the ambitious school. If we contrast the quiet, solemnly quiet, tone of that sermon of beatitudes, with the coloured character of the picture, we must condemn the inappropriate style. We should say it is immodestly painted; the picture and not the subject, obtrudes. The head of Christ is weak. It is a picture nevertheless of great ability, but with a gorgeous colouring ill suited to the subject. But we must speak with unqualified admiration of a little picture by Mr Warren—the "Ave Maria." It is a lady kneeling before a picture of a saint in a chapel. The depth and power is very surprising, and much reminds of Rembrandt, with the exception of the picture of the saint, which struck us at first as too light by a great deal, so much so that we noted it down as a glaring defect, but returning to the picture, we looked, not only till we were reconciled, but to an admiration of what we had considered a fault. It is the poetry of the subject. We see not the face of the petitioning figure, we only feel that she is there, and devoutly petitioning, and the brightness of the patron saint, with its simple open character of face and figure, comes out as a miraculous manifestation. We must not mistake—the "Ave Maria" does not mean that it is to the Virgin the petitioner prays; it is to a male saint.
Mr E. Corbould still is in the full ambition of water colour power. "Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee," is an example of the inappropriateness of this manner to solemn sacred subjects. The Mary is very good—not so the principal figure, it has a weak expression: some parts of this picture are too sketchy for others. His "Woman of Samaria" is a much better picture, has great breadth and grace. It is rather slight. His "Flower of the Fisher's Hut" is very pretty—a lady in masquerade. Absolon's "Uncle Toby" is well told, and with the author's naïveté. Mr Topham's farewell scene from the "Deserted Village," is, we think, too strong of the mock-pathetic—a scene of praying and babying.
There are many pictures we would wish to notice, but we must forbear: we cannot, however, omit the mention of a sea-piece, which we thought very fine, with a watery sky; a good design,—"North Sunderland Fishermen rendering assistance after a Squall."