The collection of water-colours is mediocre; there is a good effect of
Mr. Poynter's, the east wind seen from a high cliff sweeping down on the
sea like the black wings of some god; and some charming pictures of Fairy
Land by Mr. Richard Doyle, which would make good illustrations for one of
Mr. Allingham's Fairy-Poems, but the tout-ensemble is poor.
Taking a general view of the works exhibited here, we see that this dull
land of England, with its short summer, its dreary rains and fogs, its
mining districts and factories, and vile deification of machinery, has
yet produced very great masters of art, men with a subtle sense and love
of what is beautiful, original, and noble in imagination.
Nor are the art-treasures of this country at all exhausted by this
Exhibition; there are very many great pictures by living artists hidden
away in different places, which those of us who are yet boys have never
seen, and which our elders must wish to see again.
Holman Hunt has done better work than the Afterglow in Egypt; neither
Millais, Leighton, nor Poynter has sent any of the pictures on which his
fame rests; neither Burne-Jones nor Watts shows us here all the glories
of his art; and the name of that strange genius who wrote the Vision of
Love revealed in Sleep, and the names of Dante Rossetti and of the
Marchioness of Waterford, cannot be found in the catalogue. And so it is
to be hoped that this is not the only exhibition of paintings that we
shall see in the Grosvenor Gallery; and Sir Coutts Lindsay, in showing us
great works of art, will be most materially aiding that revival of
culture and love of beauty which in great part owes its birth to Mr.
Ruskin, and which Mr. Swinburne, and Mr. Pater, and Mr. Symonds, and Mr.
Morris, and many others, are fostering and keeping alive, each in his own
peculiar fashion.
THE GROSVENOR GALLERY 1879
(Saunders' Irish Daily News, May 5, 1879.)
While the yearly exhibition of the Royal Academy may be said to present
us with the general characteristics of ordinary English art at its most
commonplace level, it is at the Grosvenor Gallery that we are enabled to
see the highest development of the modern artistic spirit as well as what
one might call its specially accentuated tendencies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account