1885)

Millais thought of nature and life, which, when wholesome, is never less than beautiful. Sir F. Burton (1816-1900), another eclectic of a high degree and sparse productiveness, takes a place in line with Leighton. Not far remote from them, with a dash of austerity and abundance of learning, energy, and grace, comes Sir Edward Poynter, whose "Atalanta's Race," "Suppliant to Venus," " Israel in Egypt,” and, best of all, "Venus's Visit to Esculapius," which is at the Tate Gallery, are masterpieces to be enjoyed wherever culture and chastened art obtain.

Calderon,

Midway between Poynter and his antitheses, H. S. Marks and Mr. Frith (whom, of course, no one would care to compare), the student will group a body of incident and anecdote painters, some of whom incline to humour, some to pathos, some to sentiment, some to character, some to costume, and some to idyllic poetry. John Philip (1817--67) was a leader of this sort, good in Philip, nearly all the lines here named; his "La Gloria " is a tragi-comedy, Marks, his "Murillo" an "illustration," his "Free Kirk" and "The Faed. Catechism" are, in their designs at least, almost worthy of Wilkie at his best; and his "Chat Round the Brasero" is a capital piece. Calderon's finest production of late years was "Ariadne lorn of Theseus," which was in the Academy in 1895. "Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace" was a gem of a fine and charming kind; nor was "On Her Way to the Throne" unworthy of so excellent a taste as his. As a brilliant painter Calderon (183398) might be compared with Pettie, when Pettie was at his best, not otherwise, and with Mr. Orchardson, although he is not nearly so great in the sardonic vein in which the latter triumphs when he appears as the Michael Angelo of cynical and pathetic anecdote painting. As a master of humour, Marks (1829-98), when he does not labour his points too much, is very welcome; but to his "Three Jolly Post Boys" his immortality will be due. T. Faed (1826-1900) will remain eminent as a painter proper apart from the pathos of his best efforts, which are "From Dawn to Sunset," The First Break in the Family," "His Only Pair," "Baith Fether and Mither," and some later exercises in the same line. Renowned among modern painters of anecdote, history, romance, costume, and beauty, Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, who, if not of it, is in the English school, stands on one of the loftiest pedestals. A hundred pictures call him great, and leave his critic at a loss in which category to place so resourceful a designer, so

Fildes,
Leslie,
Briton

Riviere.

Crane,
Linton.

Whistler.

[1865-1885

learned and acute an observer, and so admirable a master. Apart from paintings which delighted Continental Europe before he came among us, the superb inventor of the "Danse Pyrrhique," "Fête Intime," "Tarquin," and "Death of Prætextatus," has given us "Un Amateur Roman," "Phidias at the Parthenon," "An Antique Sculptor," "The Picture Gallery," "The Sculpture Gallery," "Water Pets," "An Audience at Agrippa's," and quite a host of similar specimens, any one of which would go far to win the reputation of an artist.

It is difficult to place Mr. Fildes, whose "The Doctor " is a true chef-d'œuvre, as full of purpose and excellent painting as of pathos. Equally difficult it is to decide how the future will find where Mr. G. D. Leslie's statue shall stand; among those of the rustic, pathetic, or anecdotic painters it is sure to hold a high position. The distinction of Mr. Briton Riviere will be decided by "The Magician's Doorway," "Acteon," and "Persepolis," if not by "Phœbus Apollo" and some of his delightful "dog-pictures." He is a friend of the canine race, and, as such, quite as great, though in a very different way, as Landseer himself. In this indeterminate category of artists, to whom the English world owes so much, it is right to put George Mason, who excelled in poetry as well as in designing. A very choice idyllic spirit often rules in the landscapes of Mr. David Murray, who, when he does himself full justice, demands a very rare and noble sort of distinction, while he is a sympathetic observer of nature. Professor Costa and Corbet are twin stars of eclectic landscape painting of the highest class; they are not remote from Mason, and if, like him, they painted English subjects, the likeness of any one of the three to the others would be more obvious than it is. That Mr. Walter Crane is a master of decorative art has not prevented him from giving us some very precious quasi-classical exercises upon romantic and chivalrous themes. Sir James Linton must not be omitted when learning, care, and a fine pictorial sense are under consideration. He is one of the best draughtsmen England has produced.

It was Whistler's misfortune rather than his fault that no less a portent than the so-called Impressionism is, artistically speaking, his illegitimate offspring. Not, however, to this fine and original artist-a rare colourist, a delicate master of the etching-needle, and, as a chiaroscurist, not easily to be sur

MAY
MORRIS.

Art,

1800-1885.

passed-are due the preposterous fads and vagaries represented at the exhibition of the New English Art Club; not on Whistler (1834-1903) are to be fathered the crude and audacious vulgarities of MM. Degas and Manet, and their feeble English imitators. When Time, the avenger of common-sense, has brushed away the monstrosities of this new avatar of presumption, ignorance, and incompetence, then will it become apparent that, though in moods the most diverse and unequalled, every modern English artist of renown may be grouped with one or another of three distinguished men, whose names will survive as Sir John E. Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and James McNeill Whistler. The first was an Englishman complete, who had, practically speaking, never been out of his native country; the second was an Italian of the sixteenth century, born in England and tempered by English ways; the third, and not the least original, though far more limited, artist of the trio, is a Parisian of the later days who happened to be born in one or other of the States of the North American Union, and can hardly be said to have come under the influences of ancient art-culture at all. That he, Lord Leighton, and Sir E. Burne-Jones belong to the same generation of artistic mankind will sorely puzzle future historians of painting.

At the beginning of the century the decorative arts present a Decorative mixture of pompous pseudo-classicism-a Renaissance of the Renaissance, a degenerate ghost of a borrowed style with the superficial and trifling rococo of the eighteenth century; while there lingered a remnant of spontaneous and almost unconscious ornament applied to those wares, made rather for domestic use than for trade, which had escaped as yet the growing machine industry. Interesting as must be the last vestige of the popular art which at its best and strongest period covered France, England, Italy, and Germany with architecture and ornamental work, whose remains are at once our delight and our shame, this homely side of belated eighteenth-century decorative design has its own not very characteristic prettiness, its faint odour of romance-the romance of blue china and faded roses-and, compared with the complete negation of beauty in ornament of the late Georgian and early Victorian