Studio: international art (89.1925)

THE ROYAL ACADEMY. BY A. L.
BALDRY. 0aj»00

THERE is one very obvious complaint
to be made concerning the exhibition
of the Academy this year—that it does
not sufficiently fill the galleries and that
in consequence it looks a little poverty
stricken. No reasonable person would
like to see a return to the ridiculous over-
crowding of the walls which was the
usual practice some years ago; but
without any such reversion it would
certainly be possible to arrange a show
which would represent more adequately
the art of the moment than does the
present gathering at Burlington House.
Just over six hundred oil paintings have
been hung and as a third of these are by
members of the Academy the outside
artists can scarcely be said to have been
very generously treated ; another hundred

or so of them might fairly have been
allowed to help in making the exhibition
more complete and more attractive. a

As things are, the collection which has
been brought together is only moderately
interesting. There is much in it that is
competent technically, but there is little
that suggests any particular degree of
imagination or inspiration and less still
that introduces any new-comer of promise.
Nearly all the notable pictures come from
men of established reputation who show
the sort of work that people have become
accustomed to expect from them and who
maintain creditably the usual level of
their practice—to them is due what
authority the show possesses. 0 0

For instance, there is an admirable
group of canvases by Mr. Sims—his
portrait, Matthew Hay, Esq., is especially
distinguished—and Sir William Orpen's
The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Molony, Bt.,