The pathetic pictures were, perhaps, the most generally appreciated. Israels’ ‘Day before the Departure,’ lent by Mr. J. S. Forbes, was described thus: ‘The widow, utterly sad, has shut her Bible and seems heartbroken and hopeless. The child does not understand everything, but she knows her mother is sorry; the toy is forgotten, while she nestles close in her desire to comfort. Her love may be the light which will brighten the future,’ often reduced the beholders to sympathetic silence; while warm was the praise given to Salentin’s ‘Foundling,’ a pretty picture of an old yeoman giving the forsaken babe into the arms of his kindly daughters. The bright evening sky, the tender spring-time, the interest of the farm-boy, and the curiosity of the sheep, all hopefully express that the little one’s short, troublous day is over, and that its happier spring-time has dawned.
‘Our Father’s House,’ by Wilfrid Lawson: the little, ragged girl peeping wistfully round the church pillar at the fashionably dressed congregation, who too often monopolise ‘Our Father’s House,’ had always around it some quiet and earnest students. It aroused in them, perhaps, the sleeping sense, now so often forgotten that it is almost ignored, that the church is the people’s possession, and, maybe, it awakened the hope, deep down (if sometimes visionary) in every breast, of the coming of the ‘good time’ when all class and unworthy distinctions will be lost in the Father’s presence.
Israels’ works, of which in the last Exhibition there were five, were duly appreciated, not perhaps by the mass, but by the more thoughtful of the spectators. ‘The Canal Boat, a picture full of sadness; the man and woman look weary and worked. Nature is in tune with their hard life; still there is progress,’ said the catalogue. I overheard one man say, ‘Ah! poor chap, he’s got into a wrong current, but he’ll get out all right. Pull away.’ The picture, sketchy as it was, had taught in Israels’ style the lesson he loves to give—the pain and dreariness of life interlaced with the bright thread of hope—
Which is out of sight:
That thread of all-sustaining beauty,
Which runs through all and doth all unite.
Mr. Walter Crane’s picture of ‘Ormuzd and Ahriman,’ which he kindly lent, awoke much interest. The people read, or had read to them, the description which told that the Persians believed in two gods—the god of good, Ormuzd; the god of evil, Ahriman—and how the picture expressed the fight between the two; a fight going on in every nation and every heart, all nature being represented as standing still during the conflict; while the river of time wound gently on past the ruins of the Memnons, the Acropolis, the Grove, the Altar, and the Abbey—the symbols of the world’s great religions. ‘I expect that’s true, but we don’t seem to see much of the fight about here,’ was one cogent remark. Most frequently, though, a picture will draw forth no expression—for with the unlettered all expression is difficult, and we know how, in the presence of death, of a grand sunset, or of anything deeply moving, silence seems most fitting.
Sometimes, though, one overhears talks which reveal much. Mr. Schmalz’s picture of ‘Forever’ had one evening been beautifully explained, the room being crowded by some of the humblest people, who received the explanation with interest, but in silence. The picture represented a dying girl to whom her lover has been playing his lute, until, dropping it, he seemed to be telling her with impassioned words that his love is stronger than death, and that, in spite of the grave and separation, he will love her forever. I was standing outside the Exhibition in the half-darkness, when two girls, hatless, with one shawl between them thrown round both their shoulders, came out. They might not be living the worst life; but, if not, they were low down enough to be familiar with it and to see in that only the relation between men and women. The idea of love lasting beyond this life, making eternity real, a spiritual bond between man and woman, had not occurred to them until the picture with the simple story was shown them. ‘Real beautiful, ain’t it all?’ said one. ‘Ay, fine, but that “Forever,” I did take on with that,’ was the answer. Could anything be more touching? What work is there nobler than that of the artist who, by his art, shows the degraded the lesson that Christ Himself lived to teach?
The landscapes were, perhaps, the pictures least cared for; and this is not to be wondered at, considering how little the poorer denizens of our large towns can know of the country, or of nature’s varied and peculiar garbs, which artists delight to illustrate. ‘How far is it to that place?’ was eagerly asked before a picture of Venice, by R. M. Chevalier, a picture of which the description told how the Grand Canal was the ‘Whitechapel Road’ of Venice, and further explained the relationship of gondolas to omnibuses and cabs—a relationship not understood at once by the untravelled world. ‘Would it cost much money to go and see that?’ was often provoked by such pictures as Elijah Walton’s picture of ‘Crevasses in the Mer de Glace,’ kindly lent by Mr. H. Evill, or Mr. Croft’s ‘Matterhorn,’ lent by Mr. T. L. Devitt, and described: ‘A peak in the Alps too steep for snow, and until lately too steep for mountaineers. Chains have now been placed at the most difficult places, and several English ladies have reached the top. The artist shows the loneliness of greatness:—
The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,