Studio: international art (47.1909)

The Royal Academy Exhibition

The royal academy exhi-
bition, 1909.

The exhibition which the Academy has provided
this year is oddly lacking in either shocks or
surprises : there are few things in it which surprise
by their superlative merit, and there are also few
which shock by their obvious incompetence. It
is by no means badly hung, it is not overcrowded,
and it gives quite a good idea of what is being
done by the present-day artists who represent
reasonably all the more rational schools of practice
which happen to be in fashion. Indeed, there is
even a touch of the modern extravagance which
goes beyond what many people consider rational
limits, for there is a portrait by Signor Mancini
which has all his usual tricks and affectations, and
perhaps rather less than his usual degree of clever-
ness. But this is the only unexpected note in a
show that is otherwise quite in accordance with
precedent, and that will appeal as strongly as ever
to that section of the public which looks upon an
annual visit to Burlington House as a social duty
which may not be neglected. The collection as a
whole is encouraging in its maintenance of an
appreciably high level of technical achievement,
and to some extent disappointing, because it shows
a diminution rather than an increase of imaginative
invention among the artists of this country—they
have learned their trade well, but they are dis-
inclined to apply this knowledge to the working
out of ideas which are interesting or important.

It is this fact that makes particularly memorable
such an example of riotous imagination as The
Night Piece to Julia by Mr. Charles Sims, an
exquisite painting which combines to perfection
extraordinary fertility of fancy and the rarest beauty
of craftsmanship. There is imagination, too,
simpler and more restrained but sufficiently real, in
The Two Mothers by Mr. Edward Stott, who,
both in this picture and in another of similar
sentiment, The Flight, has turned from his
realistic treatment of pastoral motives to a more
abstract and in some respects less confident type of
art. Mr. Hacker, again, has found in rustic life
suggestions for imaginative painting, and his
canvases, The Gloaming, The Harvest Moon,
and The Cow Shed are marked by qualities of
serious sentiment which deserve much respect.
Mr. Byam Shaw’s allegory, The New Voice, is
an instance of more didactic sentiment, of the
presentation of a moral lesson through the medium
of pictorial symbolism, and it is acceptable as a

characteristic work by a painter who certainly is
not lacking in original ideas. Another side of his
art is shown equally well in his Rude Boreas,
which is excellent as a statement of shrewdly
observed facts. A more poetic adaptation of fact
distinguishes Mr. Campbell Taylor’s Bed-time,
a picture of quiet sentiment painted with charm
and restraint, and open to adverse criticism only on
the ground that the size of the canvas is a little
excessive for so dainty a subject. Mr. J. W.
Waterhouse, an artist who aims consistently at a
high order of poetic expression, is represented
this year by two small pictures, Thisbe and
Lamia, which are delightful in their delicate and
yet vigorous individuality and entirely attractive
in their beauty of colour; and Mr. E. A. Hornel,
a decorator rather than a painter of sentiment,
combines happily sensitiveness of design and
subtlety of feeling in his composition, The
Chase. Even more sensitiveness—sensitiveness
to varieties of colour and modulations of tone—is
to be perceived in Mr. J. M. Swan’s Endymion,
a picture exquisitely conceived and carried out
with masterly decision.

Although it has no subject in the ordinary sense
and no purpose either didactic or sentimental, Mr.
Sargent’s Cashmere is to be counted as in many
ways the greatest achievement which has been
included in the exhibition, so extraordinarily
accomplished is it in execution and so exact is it in
observation. Rarely has Mr. Sargent turned to
such admirable account that intimacy of vision
which is one of his strongest characteristics, and
rarely has he displayed such perfect understanding
of graces of line and delicacies of modelling—this
picture, indeed, will add appreciably to his already
commanding reputation as a painter of amazing
powers. His two portraits of Mrs. Astor, and
The Earl of Wemyss, and his large decorative
painting, Tsrael and the Law, have also very
definite distinction and help greatly to make the
exhibition memorable. Mr. J. J. Shannon’s most
ambitious picture is a large group, Frances, Dinah,
and Kathleen, Daughters of Francis Tennant, Esq.;
but the one in which he attains the highest success
is his wholly charming portrait of Chloc, Daughter
of H. E. Preston, Esq. Mr. Melton Fisher shows
a very successful group of Bettie, Thea, and Winnie
Lyster, which has given him an opportunity of
painting an effect of open-air lighting which he has
managed with exceptional sensitiveness and with
delightful spontaneity. Sir Hubert von Herkomer’s
masterly full-length of The Right Hon. Sir John T.
Brunner, Bart, M.P., Mr. George Henry’s clever

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