Newton's mountains are grand in glory and gloom; that Palmer's sunsets burn as a fiery furnace; that Mr Birket Foster's drawings are just like his woodcut vignettes; that Jenkins is our English Watteau; that Gilbert etches with the hand of Rembrandt; and that one or two painters are near to nature, and others far enough off. Gastineau, Richardson, Harding, and Collingwood Smith, as of yore, show themselves ambitious and showy; they affect the grandeur and the beauty of mountain, lake, and torrent, from the high latitude of Scottish brake and heather, to the sunny clime of Naples and Amalphi, vine-terraced and peopled with a music festiveloving peasantry. In "figure painting" the subjects and styles of Topham, Fripp, Taylor, Oakley, Rivière, Goodall, Smallfield, Jenkins, Gilbert, Hunt, Hogg, and Burton, are by this time sufficiently well known, and have long received their just meed of commendation. These artists love to paint pretty incidents, such as peasants collecting fern, shepherds driving their flock to evening shelter; Peat-Gatherers,' 'Gleaners,' 'Ploughers,' 'Reapers,' 'Gypsy Encampments.' Mr Frederick Taylor's well-worn Highland gillie is seldom absent from a year's muster of Scottish peasantry. From Mr Hunt we may hope to have a simple peasant child; from Mr Haag a camel or Bedouin; from Mr Burton a highly wrought head; from Mr Walter Goodall a cottage dance; from Mr Smallfield a sentimental moonlight—a lady, as in "the International," rising at midnight to read a love-letter at open casement; and lastly, from the easel of Mr Gilbert may be dreaded a daggerscene darkly melodramatic. Thus, without descending into further details, we may any year ring the changes harmoniously, and put together a most pleasing exhibition wholly on conjecture. Mr Burton's two studies of single heads-the one 'Selitza,' the other 'The Wife of Hassan Aga,' demand, however, individual mention. Mr Burton

draws with a precision and executes with a firm subtle hand seldom found in the ranks of water-colour art. A memorable example of his mastery is seen in 'The Widow of Wohlm' at the International Exhibition. Foreigners, we may be sure, have looked with wondering admiration upon the bright, brilliant, liquid, transparent gems found in the galleries of both our Water-Colour Societies. As already said, Europe contains nothing comparable to this our truly national school.

The remaining pages at command we will devote to a few general remarks on the International Exhibition, hoping to give more detailed criticism on the British and foreign pictures, sculptures, and manufactures in a future article. The building, the public grow willing to accept as a good utilitarian structure, enclosing the required area, and doing its business sufficiently well. Stout abuse having been bestowed upon its exterior aspect, when first its barn and conservatory architecture rose in bald poverty and huge dimension, and critics having taken revenge to the full on the ungainly edifice, the multitude now show themselves ready to accept the great fact for what it is, and make the best of it. The picture galleries, of course, everybody applauds, and the interior generally is acknowledged to be light, cheerful, and pleasant, just in keeping with a people's fancy fair, where no one looks for "high art,"—or if he do, will be woefully disappointed. We will say nothing of the so-called "trophies," and the thousand other blunders which the Commissioners, in the loss of their guiding head, have committed. Taken for all in all, however, we think the Exhibition may be pronounced a success: it is a place where certainly people may enjoy themselves; where persons given to study may gain instruction; and where nations moreover can learn, one of the other, what each has to sell, or may with profit buy. The gay inside

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as we have said, is an agreeable setoff to the dreary outside. Yet, standing even beneath the domes, eastern and western, we confess our disappointment. Throughout the whole building, indeed, the amazing size of the parts and of the objects exhibited, is, for some cause or other, as in St Peter's it self, lost. This want of effect we have to deplore even in the domes, designed especially to give eclat to the less ambitious members of the interior. These cupolas, indeed, turn out to be only glasshouses, and they are just as imposing as two large translucent umbrellas spread against the sky. As to the decoration of the building generally, Mr Crace has shown much taste and judgment in the surmounting of inherent difficulties. The principles by which he has been guided are easily understood. In mechanical structure the Exhibition is, we understand, a masterpiece; and Mr Crace has, starting with the leading idea of marking and decorating the lines of structure, thus secured at once a naturalistic as opposed to an artificial basis for his art; hence the columns in the nave, and the principals sustaining the roof, are duly emphasised. Then again a retiring background was almost essential for showing out the richness and brilliancy of the articles exhibited. Therefore the lower portions of the building are kept quiet in colour. The roof, on the contrary, is rather vivid, in order to carry up and balance the gaiety of the show below. Harmony and repose are, in fine, secured by a due apportionment of blue, red, and yellow, shaded and subdued by transition tertiaries, according to the ascertained laws of spectrum concords. The interior owes much of its popularity to the simple application of these scientific truths.

As an International Congress of the arts of painting and sculpture, the London Exhibition of 1862 naturally suggests comparison with the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1855. The catalogue of the Ex

position Française gives 5128 works, contributed by 25 nations; the catalogue of the English Exhibition enters 7018 works and 19 nationalities. In Paris, France took the lion's share, and appropriated space for 2711 art-productions, some of her pictures being gigantic in size, to the extent of 60 feet in length. England then showed herself more modest, and put on view only 777 choice and small examples of her national schools of painting, sculpture, engraving, and architecture. Now the tables are turned, and England in her own Exhibition follows the precedent set by France, and thus claims one-half of the entire galleries for her own native artists. Accordingly the present collection of English painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving sums up a total of 4113 works, while France numbers only 455, and of these but few are among her largest or her best productions. A like deficiency we have to deplore especially in the German schools. And hence, with some exceptions, hereafter to be noted, we are bound to say that while the British galleries are an honour to our British art, the foreign divisions inflict upon the schools of the Continent a palpable injustice.

We defer to a future occasion notice of the magnificent collection of the English oil paintings and water-colour drawings; and now limit our remarks to a cursory survey of the Foreign Galleries. We need scarcely repeat that travellers acquainted with the Louvre and the Luxembourg, and the salons of the Palais des Champs Elysées, will have to lament in the French division the partial and all but total absence of chief masters and leading works. The great Ingres, supposed by the French to constitute Raphael and Michael Angelo in one, is most inadequately represented by a nude nymph, called 'The Spring,' pouring water from an urn. Let any person enjoying even the most superficial acquaintance with the great French school, recall to his

memory but a few of the leading pictures in the Luxembourg-Homer Deified,' by Ingres; The Massacre of the Mamelukes,' by Horace Vernet; The Reign of Terror,' by Müller; 'The Decay of the Romans,' by Couture; and 'Dante and Virgil,' by Delacroix. Such works as these constitute the incomparable riches of French art; but the International Galleries, with few exceptions, betray but its poverty. Among these illustrious exceptions, however, we may enumerate St Francis d'Assisi,' by Benouville; 'St Augustine and St Monica,' by Ary Scheffer ; 'Sisters of Charity,' by Henriette Browne; "The Martyr,' by Delaroche; Oxen going to the Plough,' by Troyon; 'Ploughing,' by Rosa Bonheur; The Bravos,' by Meisonier; Les Cervarolles,' by Hébert; and several reduced replicas by Ivon of his great Crimean and Italian battle-pictures at Versailles, contributed by the Emperor of the French. Blame surely must rest somewhere, that this list was not greatly augmented. It is certainly matter of regret that the best at least of the very many French works in this country were not secured for the International Galleries. Soldiers of the Commonwealth insulting Charles I.,' by Delaroche, from Bridgewater House, and the presence of similar masterpieces by other artists, would have shown our French allies that we looked to their honour even though they were indifferent themselves.

We quit the French division, and approach the German school, to perform a like painful duty. Here the catalogue begins to reveal a suspicious fact. A large proportion of the pictures, it appears, are still the property of the painters themselves. They are therefore unsold, possibly unsuccessful, works; sent probably to this country, as a good market, on speculation, and as such given by "the hangers" places expressly to decoy purchasers. This is "the shop" all over. A like huckstering spirit has proved the curse of the

entire Exhibition. For the most part the display of German pictures from Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and other states, is so inefficient, that we must refuse to accept it as in the least worthy of the great Teutonic schools.

Where do we find the works of Overbeck, Cornelius, Hess, and Kaulbach, without whom German art would not exist? The only man who maintains or enhances a great reputation is Piloty. His picture, 'Nero after the Burning of Rome,' is one of the grandest compositions within the Exhibition, and rises to the required standard of "Internation."

It

It is worthy of remark, that countries which have previously taken a subordinate position now, in the absence of their more serious rivals, hold a first rank. Belgium, doubtless, has long boasted of a capital school, second, indeed, to the French, and certainly less learned than the German, but, in the present Exhibition, it is a question whether she does not, for the moment, show herself supreme over all competitors. Gallait's pictures, The Last Moments of Count Egmont,' The Abdication of Charles V.,' and 'The Honours paid to Counts Egmont and Horn,' have rightly become the theme of universal eulogy. No grander productions are to be found in the entire Exhibition. is interesting to observe, that the Latin nations of Europe, holding the Latin or Romish faith, possess among themselves an art similar, if not identical, in essential character. French, Italian, Spanish, and Belgian schools all belong to the same group, and form one family. France, first in power, is, as might be supposed, foremost also in art. Belgium, rejoicing in a free constitution, and possessing healthful national life, has also a national art vigorous and independent. Spain likewise, in the domain of pictures, has, in International competition, established her individual existence. Retaining slight reminiscence of Velasquez, and giving still less direct recogni

tion to Murillo, she yet bears on her front the traits of high birth and lineage, infuses into the old manner the fresh life of a vigorous naturalism, and thus soars on bold wing into the realms of sacred and historic art. Of the national school of Italy, either enfranchised or enslaved, it is difficult to speak in tone correspondent with the warmth of English sympathies. Italy, once the cradle of the arts, is now their grave. In the Roman school we find weak imitations of Raphael, with equally feeble studies from well-known models hired on the steps of the Sta Trinita; and thus by turns we get children blowing bubbles, and angels ascending to heaven; the soft wax of Carlo Dolci giving place only to the hard petrified marble of an emasculated classic. In the so-called free Italy of the north and of the south we see no signs of awakened genius. Colour there is, showy but washy; drawing academic but powerless; composition pretentious yet vacant. The Italian landscape of Bisi and Massimo d'Azeglio is a Claude semihistoric, got up at infinite labour, and after all just as like to nature as Berlin worsted-work or a Roman mosaic. One nation in Europe pretending to liberty is still beneath Italy-one only, and that is Greece.

To the Latin nations we have assigned a prominent position: we must now give a word to Russia, the head of the Eastern Church. It is a little singular that scarcely a single work shows signs of the Grecian or Byzantian style, so lifeless has fallen the once great school centred in Constantinople, even to extinction. Another fact, not a little singular and interesting, is here also on record: Russia, it seems, in the last century, possessed in Leritsky a portrait-painter not inferior to Reynolds or Gainsborough, as testified by the head of 'Catherine II.' For the rest, this novel collection, the first appearance of Russia in the International council of the arts, is in no way distinctive of her people, manners, or

customs. All schools-the historic, the sacred, the romantic, the naturalistic, with genre, animal, and landscape superadded - are here imitated with the delusive notes of the mocking-bird. Russia, however, like Turkey, seems to be impressed with the necessity of throwing off Eastern prescriptions, and taking to the garb and modes of the West.

Catholic countries, like the Romish Church, are, as we have seen in the realm of art, one and indivisible. So likewise are the Protestant nations:-Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and even Switzerland, may, in matters of art, faith, and practice, be classed in one confederation of kindred states. The contrast between Catholic and Protestant, and Latin and Teutonic pictures, is nowhere more marked than in the neighbouring territories of Belgium and Holland-a contrast made the more striking by immediate juxtaposition. Belgian art is vast in its dimensions, soaring in its imagination, fervent in its emotion. Modern Dutch pictures, like their Dutch cabinet ancestors, are small in size, humble in subject, and for emotion painters seem to rest content with plain common sense. In Protestant Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, are found the same mental phases. But these territories not being prolific in crucifixions, entombments, ascensions, or assumptions, the very absence of the supernatural seems to give all the freer influx and outburst to the simple yet heartfelt domestic affections. Tideman is the Faed and the Wilkie of the north, and like the German Lessing, the disciple and apostle of Protestantism. His

Administration of the Sacrament to Sick Persons and Cripples in a Norwegian Hut,' and The Catechisation by a Schoolmaster in a Norwegian Country Church,' also 'The Interior of a Laplander's Hut,' and of A Fisherman's Hut' by Höckert, are among the most truthful, earnest, and vigorous pictures in the whole Exhibition. Nations, when they bring into con

ference their national arts, ought, as in these graphic works, to be able to show us something distinctive of climate, natural geography, religion, policy, or manners. It is a stigma upon European art, a charge which the present Exhibition goes rather to confirm than rebut, that pictures, like the dress and manners of all peoples, are now fashioned after some one accepted standard, and have thus lost the individual traits of personal originality. But these countries of the north, these Scandinavian races of the mountain, the forest, and the fiord, tell us in unaccustomed brogue new and startling facts. These people, together with the Swiss, cherish a mountaineer's love of country, and thus they give us landscapes which shadow forth the grandeur of the storm, which embody the boldness of impending rock, the terror of the rushing torrent, and the true poetry of nature's wildest elements, let loose in fury. Saw-mills turned by a mountain stream, Gude's 'Norwegian Pine Forest,' Boe's Sea Birds by the Light of the Midnight Sun,' and Larsson's Waterfall in Norway,' reveal to the knowledgesearching eye physical wonders which make these somewhat outcast lands a haunt for craving imagination.

We shall not presume, within remaining limits, to discuss the difficult and vexed question of national or international sculpture. A collection so extended and varied, the most complete indeed ever brought together, calls for deliberate and detailed criticism. Suffice it, at all events for the present, to indicate the line of study and a basis for classification. The sculpture of modern Europe, then, may be fitly divided into the Classic, the Romantic, and the Naturalistic, and each of these admits again of further subdivision. Portrait-sculpture can be thrown, if desired, into a group of its own; but rather we should prefer to criticise each bust and figure according to its style and art-treatment, and therefore to marshal marble portraits, like more

imaginative works, into the Classic of the toga, seen in Gibson's 'Peel' in Westminster Abbey; the Romantic and the Naturalistic, found happily to blend in Munro's 'Sound of the Shell' and 'Child's Play;' and, lastly, the decided Naturalistic, a good example of which is afforded by Marochetti's equestrian statue of Carlo Alberto, dressed in modern regimentals, and supported by Piedmontese soldiers bearing muskets and knapsacks. Sculpture in the International Exhibition, like painting, has the advantage of tracing back its history, and thus the origin of the modern European schools is given in works such as The Fury of Athamas,' by Flaxman; the Venus,' by Canova, the Jason' and 'The Triumph of Álexander,' by Thorwaldsen. In these examples "the Classic" forms the root: "the Romantic," however, buds and blossoms as it were thereupon into the prettiness of more recent times. Mr Gibson, in his 'Venus' and 'Pandora, coloured after the supposed manner of the Greeks, may be received as the living type of the classic or antique renaissance. Other sculptors, especially, as might be expected, those given to Roman residence, follow in the same line. Mr Gatley's grand bas-relief, Pharaoh and his Army in the Red Sea,' may be quoted as an example of the historic style and type of Greece and Egypt, infused with naturalistic truth and vigour by close study of the living model. Mr Story, in his noble figure'Sibilla Libica,' falling under the same category, inclines still more to naturalism, under the legitimate inspiration of Michael Angelo's 'Sibyles' in the Sistine. Mr Foley's 'Ino and Bacchus,' Mr Cardwell's' Diana,' and Mr Fuller's

Rhodope,' are examples of the Classic gliding into the softened grace and witching charms of "the Romantic." The Romantic indeed is, for the most part, more popular and more readily understood than the Classic, which tends to the severe and the cold, and is content to appeal to the learned few, and