POYNTER.Brothers, photo.
THE IDES OF MARCH.
(By permission of the Corporation of Manchester, the owners of the picture.)

It is only in this method of execution that he still stands upon the same ground as Gérôme, with whom he shares a taste for anecdote, and a pedantic, neat, and correct style of painting. His ancient comedies played by English actors are an excellent archæological lecture; they rise above the older picture of antique manners by a more striking fidelity to nature, very different from the generalisation of the Classicists’ ideal; yet as a painter he is wanting in every quality. His marble shines, his bronze gleams, and everything is harmonised with the green of the cypresses and delicate rose-colour of the oleander blossoms in a cool marble tone; but there is also something marble in the figures themselves. He draws and stipples, works like a copper engraver, and goes over his work again and again with a fine and feeble brush. His pictures have the effect of porcelain, his colours are hard and lifeless. One remembers the anecdotes, but one cannot speak of any idea of colour.

POYNTER.Dixon, photo.
A VISIT TO ÆSCULAPIUS.
(By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., the owners of the copyright.)
ALMA TADEMA.L’Art.
SAPPHO.
(By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., the owners of the copyright.)

Albert Moore is to be noted as the solitary “painter” of the group: a very delicate artist, with a style peculiar to himself; one who is not so well known upon the Continent as he deserves to be. His province, also, is ancient Greece, yet he never attempted to reconstruct classical antiquity as a learned archæologist. Merely as a painter did he love to dream amid the imperishable world of beauty known to ancient times. His figures are ethereal visions, and move in dreamland. He was influenced, indeed, by the sculptures of the Parthenon, but the Japanese have also penetrated his spirit. From the Greeks he learnt the combination of noble lines, the charm of dignity and quietude, while the Japanese gave him the feeling for harmonies of colour, for soft, delicate, blended tones. By a capricious union of both these elements he formed his refined and exquisite style. The world which he has called into being is made up of white marble pillars; in its gardens are cool fountains and marble pavements; but it is also full of white birds, soft colours, and rosy blossoms from Kioto, and peopled with graceful and mysterious maidens, clothed in ideal draperies, who love rest, enjoy an eternal youth, and are altogether contented with themselves and with one another. It might be said that the old figures of Tanagra had received new life, were it not felt, at the same time, that these beings must have drunk a good deal of tea. Not that they are entirely modern, for their figures are more plastic and symmetrical than those of the actual daughters of Albion; but in all their movements they have a certain chic, and in all their shades of expression a weary modernity, through which they deviate from the conventional woman of Classicism. Otherwise the pictures of Albert Moore are indescribable. Frail, ethereal beings, blond as corn, lounge in æesthetically graduated grey and blue, salmon-coloured, or pale purple draperies upon bright-hued couches decorated by Japanese artists with most æsthetic materials; or are standing in violet robes with white mantles embroidered with gold, by a grey-blue sea which has a play of greenish tones where it breaks upon the shore. They stand out with their rosy garments from the light grey background and the delicate arabesques of a gleaming silvery gobelin, or in a graceful pose occupy themselves with their rich draperies. They do as little as they possibly can, but they are living and seductive, and the stuffs which they wear and have around them are delicately and charmingly painted. It is harmonies of tone and colour that exclusively form the subject of every work. The figures, accessories, and detail first take shape when the scheme of colour has been found; and then Albert Moore takes a delight in naming his pictures “Apricots,” “Oranges,” “Shells,” etc., according as the robes are apricot or orange colour or adorned with light ornaments of shell. Everything which comes from his hands is delightful in the charm of delicate simplicity, and for any one who loves painting as painting it has something soothing in the midst of the surrounding art, which still confuses painting with poetry more than is fitting.

Mansell Photo.
ALMA TADEMA.A VISIT.
Scribner.Scribner.
ALBERT MOORE.ALBERT MOORE.MIDSUMMER.
(By permission of Messrs. Cadbury, Jones & Co., the owners ofthe copyright.)