brothers and their cousin, bent on no less a task than the establishment of a grand school of painting of a somewhat different class than any that had gone before. To the results of a close study of nature and of the antique they desired to add the results of an equally attentive examination of every great master's peculiar qualities; and thus produce, in theory at least, works of still loftier excellence. These men, having made themselves worthy of such a position, opened a studio in the house of the cousin, Ludovico, to prepare others who might also carry on the good work. This was the foundation of the famous eclectic school of Bologna by the Carracci; one of whom, Agostino (1588-1601), drew the cartoons in the vestibule or passage before mentioned; another, Ludovico (1555-1619), who first planned the school and chiefly guided its operations, is the painter of the 'Susannah and the Elders,' the Entombment of Christ,' and of the copy of Correggio's Ecce Homo;' whilst the third and greatest, Annibale (1560-1609), enriches the Gallery with a noble series of works, no less than eight in number, among which two are indeed gems, the 'Silenus gathering Grapes,' and the Pan (or Silenus ?) teaching Apollo to play on the Reed;' both are painted in distemper, and originally, it is supposed, decorated the same harpsichord. It is not unworthy of remark, as showing how greatly application may develop excellence, that of the three Carracci, whilst Agostino, who was of a light, gay disposition, worked at the easel but by fits and startswhilst Ludovico, whose phlegmatic temperament and lofty mind naturally inclined him to study and work, laboured steadily in his vocation-it is Annibale, the often rude and impatient, but always generous and enthusiastic, who surpassed both in the incessant character of his application, and in its results. With two delightful traits of Annibale, we must conclude our brief notice of this noble trio to whom modern art owes so much he is said to have kept his colours and his money in the same box, both equally at the disposal of his scholars when he died, he was buried, according to his own desire, by the side of Raphael. Among these scholars two stand out conspicuous, Guido (15751642) and Domenichino (1581-1641). The talents of Guido were so early and conspicuously shown, that the Carracci grew jealous, and Guercino (before mentioned) and Domenichino were pushed forward by them in consequence. We have eight pictures by Guido in the Gallery, one of which, the Andromeda,' is in the artist's best manner, warm, harmonious and delicate; and four by Domenichino, who has been ranked among the first of painters, and whose progress upwards was still more remarkable than his master's, Annibale Carracci. He was called the 'ox' by his fellow students: upon which Annibale one day remarked that the nickname was only applicable to Domenichino's patient and fruitful industry. It was a maxim of the latter that not a single line ought to be traced by the hand which was not already fully conceived in the mind. That all this implied anything but the want of energy and enthusiasm Annibale had one day an interesting proof: he found Domenichino acting in person the scene which he had to paint. Among the recent acquisitions of the Gallery is one by John Van Eyck (1370-1441), which seems to show that the discoverer or restorer of oil painting had leapt at once to perfection, in the preparation of the vehicles of his colours, and kept the knowledge thus acquired to himself, for there is nothing in modern pic tures to be compared with Van Eyck's for mingled delicacy and effect, and we fear for permanence. Above four centuries have passed over this little quaint piece of brilliancy, without a trace of its existence. The subject is unknown: it consists of two figures, a male and a female, holding each other's hands. The picture belongs to a very interesting period, when John Van Eyck and his brother had raised the school of Flanders to the highest pitch of eminence among the earlier schools of European art. They were men, as we may almost perceive in this interesting picture, who added to the most exquisite technical skill, profound feeling, and powerful perception and delineation of character. Before and after them there is a melancholy waste, not in northern art itself, but in our Gallery of its specimens. The fine old romance school of painting might never have existed for aught we here perceive to the contrary. When we next arrive at works of the Flemish school, it is after a period of decline and degradation; from which a new artist at once, by his single strength, raised it; namely, Rubens (1577-1640), who, by the variety and value of the stores of a mind to which Nature had been most unusually bountiful of her richest gifts, informed it with a glowing life, an energy of character and passion, mingled with almost unequalled harmony of gorgeous colouring and picturesque composition, that placed both the school and the founder of it at the very highest point of reputation, -we perceive in this Gallery how deservedly. Rubens was equally great in history, landscape, and portraiture: of the last we possess, as yet, no examples; of the second we have a 'Sunset,' and a 'Landscape,' representing Rubens' own château near Malines, with the country around it, a wonderfully beautiful work; and of the first, among nine pictures of different sizes and value, the well known 'Brazen Serpent;' the St. Bavon,' one of the most harmonious and picturesque of compositions; and, above all, the glorious' Peace and War,' painted by Rubens in this country whilst ambassador to the Court of Charles I., to whom he presented it. Rubens had of course numerous. pupils and followers, one of them scarcely less great than himself. Rubens' first intimation of something of this kind was owing to an interesting incident whilst he was painting his grand work, 'The Descent from the Cross:' one of the pupils pushed another against it, the part touched was wet, and consequently, considerable damage done. To allay probably the alarm of his companions, another pupil, Vandyck, stepped forth and did his best to set all to rights unknown to the master. When Rubens next looked at the picture, he was more than usually pleased with a certain portion -Vandyck's. It is said, by some, that Rubens's | and he must be difficult to please who would desire to see jealousy was so excited on his discovering the truth that he repainted the part; others, that it increased his esteem for his scholar,—a supposition more in accordance with the princely generosity of Rubens's character, and supported by the strongest facts, namely, that they parted friends, and remained friends after parting, Rubens at one time even offering him his daughter in marriage. The pictures in the Gallery, from the hands of Vandyck (1599-1641), are four in number, among which may be particularly mentioned the magnificent historical picture of St. Ambrosius and the Emperor Theodosius,' and the portrait generally esteemed without equal in the world-that of 'Gevartius,' as it is incorrectly called, or 'Vander Geest,' as no doubt it should be designated. Of Jordaens (1594-1678), the most important of Rubens's pupils next to Vandyck, the Gallery possesses a Holy Family; and of other Flemish masters five works, three of them by Teniers (1610-1694), whose productions have been justly likened to reflections from a convex mirror, such is their minute truth and nature. From the Flemish the transition is easy to the Dutch school, and a very fair sprinkling of the works of its most eminent men may be found in the Gallery. The works of Poelenburg (1586-1666), of De Keyser (1595-1660), and of Van Goyen (1596-1656), lead up to those of Rembrandt (1606-1674), great King of Shadows; who is here nobly represented. One of the finest productions in his early careful style, the Woman taken in Adultery,' enriches the Gallery; also his 'Christ taken down from the Cross,' his 'Adoration of the Infant Jesus by the Shepherds,' with the Woman Bathing' (or washing), a landscape, and two of his marvellous portraits. Nothing can exceed the poetical grandeur of the style of these works, in spite of their roughness of execution (people with too curious eyes should remember Rembrandt's caution, that paint was unwholesome): or in spite of an infinitely more important defect, the inherent rudeness, it may almost be called vulgarity, of the figures. When Vandyck was once admiring a work of Rembrandt's in the painter's presence, the latter exultingly remarked, "Yet I have never been in Italy." "That is very evident," was the quiet and not undeserved reply. A landscape by John Both (1610-1656), a' Calm' and a Storm at Sea' by the half amphibious Vandervelde (1633-1707), and a landscape by Cuyp, the Claude Lorraine of the Low Countries, are the only other Dutch works our space will permit us to particularize. But we have incidentally recalled a name which, in itself almost a strain of music, opens a vista of the most charming productions that any age or time has given to us. Our National Gallery is here again worthy of its name: no less than ten works by Claude Lorraine (1660-1682) are in it. It were useless to enumerate them, by whatever name called, the names served but to account for the figures put into them, and these are so bad that Claude used to say he gave them away, and sold only the landscape: landscapes essentially they are, them anything else. We can well understand the feeling which made Sir George Beaumont, himself a landscape-painter of the finest taste, after he had given his pictures to the Gallery, beg for one of them, his especial darling, back again during his lifetime, when we know that it was a Claude (Hagar in the Desert') that he so desiderated. Claude, with Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665), and Gaspar Poussin (1613-1675), may almost be said to form a school of their own, though Lanzi places them in the Roman, and other writers in the French school. France was their country, either by birth or immediate descent, but from Italy they derived their nurture. Nicholas led the way in that kind of landscape which has grandeur for its object, and was followed by Gaspar, the mightiest master in the style we have yet had; and Bourdon (1616-1671), a scarcely less eminent French painter, of whom we have but a single specimen, the 'Return of the Ark:' this is the painter, by the way, who copied from recollection a picture of Claude's so perfectly as to astonish that great painter no less than it astonished the public generally. The Gallery is rich in the works of both the Poussins, there being eight by Nicholas (or seven, if the 'Phineas and his Followers' be, as alleged, by Romanelli), and six by Gaspar: among these, if we must make any special mention, we may particularise Gaspar's Landscape, with Abraham and Isaac,' as the truly grandest perhaps that ever was painted, and Nicholas's 'Plague of Ashdod' (where the very tints and tones seem smitten with the disease they illustrate) in one style, and the two Bacchanalian pictures in another, as works of the very highest kind. The mechanical perfection attained by some of our painters is very extraordinary ; Gaspar could paint a landscape in a day. The four pictures by Lancret (1690-1743), pupil and imitator of Watteau, demand but a passing mention; of Vernet (1714-1789), and Greuze (1726-1805), we have each a specimen. These complete our collection of the works of the French school. And we may here, immediately after the great landscape-painters above named, not unfitly find a niche for a man who was a school almost in himself, Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), poet, musician, actor, architect, improvisatore, and painter, of whom we have a single work, Mercury and the Woodman:' why we have nothing more important we leave those to tell who, when two of the greatest of Salvator's productions, 'Diogenes casting away his Cup, and Heraclitus sitting among the Remnants of Mortality,' were offered to the Gallery, refused them; the individual who had a chief voice in their refusal afterwards purchasing them for the Grosvenor Gallery. There remains but two schools more to be noticed the Spanish and the English. As to the Spanish, five pictures alone represent it; three by Murillo, the most distinguished of Spanish colourists, which consist. of a Holy Family, St. John with the Lamb, and a Spanish Peasant Boy, the last belonging to a class with Lord,' and 'Lord Heathfield,' the brave defender of Gibraltar-with a study of Angels' heads, exquisitely beautiful; one picture by Copley (1738-1815), the 'Death of Lord Chatham;' four by West (1738-1820), of which the least ambitious is by far the best, namely, the 'Orestes and Pylades;' five by Lawrence (17691830), including the famous Kemble portrait, to which a corresponding picture of Mrs. Siddons has lately been added by a friend; two by Wilkie (1785-1841), the 'Blind Fiddler' and 'Village Festival '—works whose merits are as rare as their reputation is universal; with others by Constable, Hoppner, Beechey, Jackson, Beaumont, Philips, Williams, and Hilton (died 1839): the last left us a truly noble work, representing, from the Fairy Queen,' 'Sir Calepine rescuing Serena '—and which, in rich, art-loving, somewhat self-glorifying England, the painter was unable to sell, and kept therefore till the day of his death. It was purchased a short time back by some public-spirited gentlemen, Hilton's admirers, and presented to the nation, which will yet be proud of it. Of the Vernon Gallery, consisting, as it does, mostly of the works of painters who yet live, we shall say nothing in the way of criticism: what its proper value may be, whether looked at as a whole, or in parts, time alone can properly decide. Unquestionably the gift was a magnificent one, and will materially enrich the Gallery. Our contemporaries are here worthily represented. There are in all 152 pictures: among these are some older works,-namely, three by Reynolds, two by Wilson, one by Loutherbourg, three by Gainsborough, five by Hilton, and two by Wilkie. Among the other painters may be mentioned Stothard, Callcott, Turner, Eastlake, Etty, Mulready, Maclise, Leslie, Edwin Landseer, &c. &c. which our countrymen have been made familiar | Family,' and two of his finest portraits-the Banished through the medium of engravings; whilst the other two pictures are by Murillo's master, Velasquez (15991660);-one Philip of Spain hunting the wild boar, and the other a portrait, and therefore giving us some opportunity of judging of the truth of the skill attributed to him in that branch of art. When his patron, Philip IV., came one day in his room, he saw, as he thought, Admiral Pareja, in a dark corner, whom he had ordered to sea; "What! still here!" said he; of course, the admiral's portrait remained silent, and the king discovered his error. But neither the portrait nor the anecdote give us any adequate idea of the mighty talent of the greatest of Spanish painters, of whom it has been said, in "things mortal, and touching man, Velasquez was more than mortal: he is perfect throughout, whether painting high or low, rich or poor, young or old, human, animal, or natural objects. His dogs are equal to Snyders's; his chargers to Rubens's-they know their rider. When Velasquez descended from heroes, his beggars and urchins rivalled Murillo: no Teniers or Hogarth ever came up to the waggish wassail of his drunkards. He is by far the first landscape-painter of Spain: his scenes are full of local colour, freshness and daylight, whether verdurous courtlike avenues, or wild rocky solitudes: his historical pictures are pearls of great price: never were knights and soldiers so painted as in his Surrender of Breda."* Referring once more to the title 'National Gallery,' it seems natural to conclude that one of the most important objects aimed at in its formation would be the gathering together, at almost any cost, the specimens of English art, from its earliest days down to the present time. How else, indeed, could a truly National Gallery be formed? It is very odd, but it does seem to be the fact, that such an idea had never entered the minds of those who have had it in their power to carry it out to its legitimate practical conclusion. We had about forty-two English pictures, it is true, before the addition of the Vernon Gallery; but as to their quality, or the extent to which they illustrated English art, it was all matter of accident. They are very liberal at the National Gallery! they take every thing that is offered, if it be not very bad, and by no means exclude the works of Englishmen but purchasing is a different matter: we believe not a single native picture has been obtained in that way. We may then really consider ourselves fortunate that our early English school has any worthy representatives. There are one of Hogarth's (1697-1764) inestimable moral series, the Marriage à la Mode,' in six pictures, and his own portrait with the dog; two of Wilson's (1714-1782) glorious landscapes, the Niobe and the Villa of Mæcenas;' two of Gainsborough's (1727-1788), less grand perhaps, but richer in colour and still more freshly beautiful-- these are the Market Cart,' and the Watering Place;' ten pictures by Reynolds (1728-1792), including his 'Infant Samuel,' 'Holy Penny Cyclopædia'-Velasquez. Among the other Galleries of London, there are several which we should have been glad to have noticed had our space permitted us to do so: and we can but regret that it does not. Such are the collection in Devonshire House, rich in Italian pictures, and more particularly of the Venetian school; Sir Robert Peel's, of which Waagen speaks so highly as "a series of faultless pearls of the Flemish and Dutch schools," a monument of the artistical taste and knowledge of their owner and collector: the Bridgewater, formerly the Stafford Gallery, to which a great work in four folio volumes has been specially dedicated, and which holds the first rank among English collections, being rich in all schools-pre-eminently so in the highest, and containing above 300 pictures; the collection in Stafford House, belonging to the Duke of Sutherland; Lord Ashburton's; the Duke of Wellington's; Mr. Hope's; and the Marquis of Westminster's, better known as the Grosvenor Gallery, one of the wealthiest in the country in the works of Rembrandt, and the Dutch and Flemish painters, and containing many and valuable works in all the other chief schools. We conclude, then, with a notice of a building, which | found-the walls, indeed, doing double duty, by means has no doubt often attracted the eye of the reader as of an ingenious contrivance-moveable planes, with he passed through Lincoln's-inn Fields, by the pecu- sufficient space between for the pictures; by which liarity of its general appearance by the gothic-means a room of about 12 feet by 20 can accommodate as looking corbels attached to the front, without any many pictures as an ordinary gallery, 45 feet long by apparent object, and by the figures on the upper part 20 feet broad. The value of the countless articles of the building, which to some may be familiar as copies here so ingeniously arranged varies of course; many of the Caryatides attached to the Temple of Pandroseus of them are of inestimable price. A foreigner, menat Athens. (Cut, No. 5.) That is the Museum of Sir tioned by Mrs. Jameson, compared its labyrinthine John Soane, the eminent architect, presented by him passages and tiny recesses to a mine branching out to the public, and secured for ever to its use by a into many veins, where, instead of metallic ores, you parliamentary enactment; and one of the most muni- find works of art; and the remark does no more than ficent gifts ever made to a nation, was made also in justice to the Soane Museum. Its formation was the the most munificent manner: Sir John provided an work of the chief portion of a lifetime, and involved endowment for the maintenance of the Museum, as an expenditure that has been estimated at upwards of well as the Museum itself, leaving us nothing to do £50,000. To this general idea of the contents of the but to enjoy, and be grateful.* The interior is probably Museum we can but add a rapid glance over some of the most extraordinary succession of little halls, little the most interesting among the articles that belong to corridors, little dining, breakfast, and drawing-rooms, our general subject-the Pictures. Among these are little studios and parlours, or, what comes to the same the portrait of Soane, by Lawrence; Reynolds's famous thing, which look little from the multitude of objects Snake in the Grass;" the 'Study of a Head,' from crowded into them, that ever awaited the eyes of a curi- one of Raphael's Cartoons--a relic saved from the ous visitor; and the names are no less fantastic: Monk's wreck of the lost Cartoons, which remained in the Parlour-Catacombs-Sepulchral Chamber-Crypt- possession of the family of the weaver who originally Shakspere Recess-Tivoli Recess-Monument Court worked them in tapestry; copies of two other heads from -such are the appellations of different parts of the the same, by Flaxman; another of Hogarth's moral building. As to the contents, they are at once so series,-the eight paintings of the 'Rake's Progress," multifarious, and so different, that to describe them with several others of the painter's original works; satisfactorily in any other way than by reprinting the also paintings by Canaletto, one of them esteemed his description sold at the Museum is all but impossible. finest work, Watteau, Fuseli, Turner, Callcot, Eastlake, There are Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman Hilton. Yes, we must notice one thing beside, the antiquities, modern sculptures, gems, rare books and truly magnificent Egyptian Sarcophagus,' found by manuscripts, pictures, architectural models (an ex- Belzoni in a tomb, and which is of the finest Oriental tensive collection, illustrating chiefly Sir John's own alabaster, transparent when a light is placed in it, and public works); in short, we should hesitate before we most elaborately sculptured all over. It measures ventured to name anything positively as not being 9 feet 4 inches in length, 3 feet 8 inches in breadth, there. Walls, cabinets, recesses, ceilings, are every- and 2 feet 8 inches in depth at the highest part. It is, where covered, not an inch of spare room is to be in all probability, the most beautiful relic of Egyptian art existing. The learned are sadly at issue as to whom it belonged; Sir Gardner Wilkinson considers it was the 'Cenotaph' of the father of Rameses the Great, whose conquests are represented on the walls of the great Temple of Ammon at Thebes. * As the regulations concerning admission are, from the confined character of the place, and the great and peculiar value of the objects contained in it, necessarily framed and observed with great care, we subjoin from the Description what we may call the official announcement: The Museum is "open to general visitors on Thursdays and Fridays during the months of April, May, and June, in each year; and likewise on Tuesdays from the first week in February to the last in August, for the accommodation of foreigners, persons making but a short stay in London, artists, and those who, from particular circumstances, may be prevented from visiting the Museum in the months first specified, and to whom it may be considered proper such favour should be conceded. Persons desirous of obtaining admission to the Muscum can apply either to a trustee, by letter to the Curator (George Bailey, Esq.), or personally at the Museum a day or two before they desire to visit it; in the latter case, the applicant is expected to leave a card, containing the name and address of the party desiring admission, and the number of persons proposed to be introduced, or the same can be entered in a book kept for the purpose in the hall, when, unless there appears to the Curator any satisfactory reason to the contrary, a card of admission for the next open day is forwarded by post to the given address." MISCELLANEOUS EXHIBITIONS. One of the most interesting features in British Art, is the sudden growth of the school of painting in water-colours; there are those living to whom it must seem as if it were but yesterday, when to say a man was a water-colour painter was to give the idea of his fitness to make correct topographical drawings, and nothing more. Turner, Girtin, and John Varley, founded the existing water-colour schools. Of these Turner alone remains, and he has long ceased to paint in anything but oil. The first [or old] "Society of Painters in Water-colours," was founded in 1804, in order to get rid of the serious disadvantages attending the exhibition of water-colour drawings among paintings in oil, the strength and body of the colours another class of public exhibitions,-the Panoramas, Dioramas, Cosmoramas, etc., etc., which have been brought to a high state of perfection, and are, popularly, very attractive. These are private speculations. Among the most noticeable, are the exhibitions of London by day and night, in the Colosseum, Regent's Park. (Cut, No. 13.) in the last, naturally overpowering the more delicate hues of the first. The Second or New Society of Water-colour Painters was formed in 1832; by which time the older body had grown somewhat wealthy and extensive. Both are, we believe, in a flourishing condition; their galleries neighbour each other in Pall-mall. The only other Society requiring mention is the Society of British Artists, established in 1823, who The wood-engraving, at page 86, named Horticulhave one of the best galleries in London. tural Gardens,' should have been described as 'The Winter Intimately connected, however, with our subject, is Garden of the Royal Botanic Society.' |