THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
| The Champion.] | [February 12, 1815. |
Cottage Child at Breakfast, W. Collins, A.R.A. This is a pleasing little picture, but inferior to Mr. Collins’s general performances. The shadow cast on the wall is like plaster of a darker colour, nor should we have suspected it to be meant for shadow, had it not been pointed out to us. Reapers, by the same artist, is a still greater falling off. The mixture of minute finishing and slovenliness in the execution, and of blues and yellows in the colouring of this picture is to us very unaccountable.
Devotion, J. Laschallas. We wish that we could conjure this little picture out of its frame to have a nearer view. The drawing, expression, tone, and composition appear to us admirable.
A Scolding Wife; her Husband having spent all his Money at the Fair, L. Cossé. This is not a very pleasant subject, nor very pleasantly treated. The little child blowing the trumpet is the pretty part of the picture. There is one figure of a woman in a blue stuff gown, sitting by the fire-side, in an attitude of yawning, which both for the truth of the colouring and the action, is inimitable.
A Country Scene, by the same, has the hard brickdusty tone which there is in the faces of the other picture; but the expression is natural and good.
A Colour-Grinder, R. T. Bone, is a spirited and faithful imitation of nature.
A Study from Nature, J. Harrison, is a well-painted head. At the same time, there is something about it very unpleasant to us.
Hebe and Sunrise, by H. Howard, R.A., were, we believe, in last year’s Exhibition at Somerset-house. There is a certain grace and elegance in both of them. The fantastic, playful lightness of the figures in the last is perhaps carried to a degree of affectation. The faces of the Pleiades are very pretty and very insipid.
Conrade and Gulnare, H. Singleton. We could neither understand this picture nor the lines from Lord Byron’s Corsair, which are intended to explain the subject of it.
Brutus exhorting the Romans to revenge the Death of Lucretia. Of this composition we find we have already said quite enough.
View of Arthur’s Seat near Edinburgh, P. Nasmyth, is a very nicely painted landscape. We like all this gentleman’s landscapes, except A View of Edinburgh, which is just like a painting on a tea-board.
Breaking the Ice, by James Burnett, is a very delightful picture. It has the effect of walking out in a fine winter’s morning. Many incidental associations are very happily introduced; the pigeons collected on the thatch of a shed, and the robin-redbreast perched in a window of an out house. The pigeons are, however, too small, and the colour on the breast of the robin is on fire. Perhaps these objections are too minute. The pigeon-house looks suspended in the air, and the sky and branches of the trees seen against it are painted with admirable brilliancy. Peasants going to Market, by the same artist, is of equal merit. The skirt of the drapery of the peasant girl looks as if the sun shone directly upon it. The docks in the foreground of the picture are very highly finished, and touched with great spirit, but we never saw this kind of plant of the lightish green colour, which is here given to it.
Milking, by John Burnett, is a very brilliant little picture. The red dress of the girl at the milk-pail is as rich as possible. The trees at a little distance are too much in sharp points and touches. The cattle in the landscapes of both the painters of this name are too much in heavy masses, and form too violent a contrast to the lightness of the landscape about them.
The Watering Place, P. H. Rogers, deserves considerable praise, both for the colouring and composition.
Banks of the Thames, J. Wilson, is a very clever picture. The foreground and the distance are equally well painted; but they do not appear in keeping. The one is quite clear, and the other covered with haze.
Morning, and View from Rydal Woods, by C. V. Fielding, are both masterly performances. The last, in particular, is a rich, mellow landscape, and presents a fine, woody, and romantic scene, which in some degree calls off our admiration from the merit of the artist to the beauties of nature. This is a sacrifice of self-love which many of our artists do not seem willing to make. They too often chuse their subjects, not to exhibit the charms of nature, but to display their own skill in making something of the most barren subjects.
We think this objection applies to Mr. Hofland’s landscapes in general. The scene he selects is represented with great truth and felicity of pencil, but it is, generally speaking, one we should neither wish to look at, nor to be in. In his Loch-Lomond and Stirling Castle, the effect of the atmosphere is finely given; but this is all. We wish to enter our protest against this principle of separating the imitation from the thing imitated, particularly as it is countenanced by the authority of the ablest landscape painter of the present day, of whose landscapes some one said, that ‘they were pictures of nothing, and very like!’