Exhibition they have been accorded positions of
the best, while works of art are relegated to
obscure and inconvenient places—among them
portraits by Watts, Sir Joshua, and Raeburn, and
landscapes by Constable and Turner. The worst
case is the hanging of the pictures of Cecil Lawson,
the greatest English landscape painter of recent
times. His most important works, a close study of
which would have been a source of pleasure and
profit to every discerning lover of art, have been
placed in inaccessible jwsitions. Such hanging as
this is as peculiar as it is indefensible. With
spacious galleries, and a wealth of fine material, the
entire arrangement is such that no wall conveys an
impression at all equal to that of the best room at
Edinburgh—the French and Dutch Loan Section—or equal to that attained by the grouping
of the works of the best British painters at
Manchester. If demonstration was required
of a thing which every one with art feeling knows, Edinburgh and Manchester demonstrated
that, to show good pictures properly, it is necessary
to keep them in good company. After the example
of Edinburgh especially, it is deplorable that the
Foreign Loan Section here should be hung as it is,
instead of being arranged so as to ensure that the
grave harmony of the noble works contained in it
shall be preserved unjarred. The Foreign Section
might have been as cosmopolitan as it is, but the
good pictures might have been kept on walls by
themselves, with clear gain all round. Whatever
may be the educative value of such Art Exhibitions—a thing about which there is a deal of
cant in the air—it is evident that the best lesson
Edinburgh and Manchester had to teach, from
an art exhibition point of view, has not been
learned by the hangers of the very next that has
followed.
The Water-colour Section is by no means so strong: in art of a high class as are the sections already alluded to; indeed the collection is only redeemed from failure by the presence of a few good drawings, some of which might surely have been better placed. The art interest of the collection centres in the sketches and pictures by Turner, David Cox, Rossetti, Burne Jones, James Maris, Bosboom, J. M. Swan, E. A. Walton, Mauve, Williamson, and Mesdag. A perfect example of Turner at his best is hung in the centre of a screen in the middle of the room. To the right of it is a particularly beautiful sketch by the same master—a nocturne, wrought with the delicate sensibility and artistic power that are so remarkable in Turner's best work. It is a pity that Mr. Ruskin's devoted admiration for Turner, and avowed reverence for art, have not prevented him from scribbling, in ink, on the face of this exquisite work—
'I don’t know the place
J. Ruskin, 1880.
J.M. W.T. Late Time
and very bad for him,'
—spread over four lines upon the picture, as here printed. 'The place' is evidently somewhere in the heaven of the painters dreams. No wonder Mr. Ruskin does not know it!
From this general survey of the various sections an estimate may be formed of the character of the whole. This may be best indicated by comparing and contrasting it with the two remarkable Exhibitions that went before. In Edinburgh the outstanding feature was the French and Dutch Loan Section, in marked contrast to the inadequate collection of British pictures, which, though it comprised fine examples of a few of the masters, was, as a whole, far from being representative of the Art of the country. The special interest of the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition lay in its displaying in one grand collection what the powers that be—namely, the Royal Academy and the dealers who exploit the Academy, have recognised—or have been constrained to regard—as representative British Art produced during the last half-century. That Exhibition was widely popular independently of its art value, because it contained hundreds of pictures with which the British public were already familiar, from their having been engraved. Continental Art did not come within the plan of the Manchester Exhibition, and British Art was so imperfectly represented at Edinburgh, that, though each had distinguishing features of interest, neither of these Exhibitions afforded opportunity for comprehensively viewing the scope and direction of modern European thought in art, and deducing therefrom the lessons it may teach. The distinguishing- feature, therefore, of the Glasgow Exhibition is, that, being truly international in spirit, it is rich in sufficiently representative examples of what the modern world has been doing in art to allow ample scope for comprehensive and intelligent study of the subject. This is what differentiates it from all other recent Exhibitions, and gives it a special and peculiar value; and lovers of art would do well to avail themselves fully of the opportunities it affords.
II.— SCULPTURE.
HERE may be seen, without doubt, the best collection of recent Sculpture that has ever been exhibited in this country. This, however, is the most that can be said, and it is not much when
