Coincident in period with these latter water-
colours are 'The Miller's Cottage,' 1856; 'The
Cottar's Well,' 1855 or 1857; and the large, effec-
tive, powerfully blocked-out sketch of ' The Minnow
Fishers,' to which a curiously recent date is, tenta-
tively, assigned in the catalogue, — important subjects
in oil, in all of which the influence of Constable is
unmistakable, and, indeed, overmastering.
But in works like ' A Border Castle,' 1872, and
the ' Gloaming on the Eye,' 1880, the painter shows
more clearly his own essential individuality ; though
in these, and in all that he did in later years and
tliat was most typically his, he approximates — quite
independently, and of his own proper motion — to
the aims and methods of the Frencli landscapists of
the generation that is just passing away. Detail,
in works like these, has become subsidiary ; the
artist has chosen to sacrifice the ' each ' to the ' all '
of nature ; he is engrossed with the large relations
of things, with composition, with the general balance
of opposed or blended colour, with facts of tone, of
atmosphere, of gradation ; and into his treatment of
these he infuses as much as we could well desire of
true ^painters' poetry ' — the excellent phrase is Mr. Whistler's — of that beauty and suggestiveness which
can be gained by accomplished technique, and can
be gained in no other way. On similar lines, and —
though of smaller size — of even more perfect quality,
is the ' Blairlogie ' and the ' On the Ellwand.' We
have seldom, indeed, seen a rendering of moonlight
more satisfyingly liarmonious and rich in tone than
is afforded by the first-named of these two pictures.
Altogether the little exhibition is a most interest-
ing one, full of the instruction and the delight which
true art always brings to us hand in hand. We are
disappointed to learn that, as yet, the great bulk
of its visitors have been painters. These have not
failed duly to appraise its value ; but the exhibition
is one which has the strongest claims upon the
attention and the patronage of the entire body of
the art-loving public of Scotland.
J. M. Gray.
OF LOVE IN ART.
LOVE moves men to do great things, and is assuredly the truest incitement to production that the artist has. Imbued with the spirit of beauty which he drinks in from the world around him, his nature makes him long to express its love- liness, to tell the message he has received, and lovingly in song, on canvas, or in stone, doth he spend his force. Cupid will not serve as representative of this amour, for he is blind ; but artist-love is ever watch- ful and bright-eyed. Love's power is divinely sympathetic and com- municable ; to sliare delight its end ; and once aroused — be its affection what it may, for good or bad — it influences all. Its glamour is magnetic, Joy and Beauty hasten to lend their enchantments, and the artist-lover breathes forth his soul in his art ; for is not tliis ecstatic perception of the beauti- ful the artist's patrimony par excellence? And though others may feel intensely, yet to produce requires of the mind the most passionate absorp- tion ; and exactly in proportion to the rapture of the love felt by the artist for his subject, will be the beauty of his annunciation to others expressed through his work. Want of enthusiasm is indeed an unforgivable fault in the artist ; in fact, an artist wanting enthu- siasm is a contradiction in terms. If the name artist means anything, it surely means one to whom ' vital feelings of delight' are habitual ; so much so, tliat, being liimself continually filled with them, he must express them to his fellows, that they also may share them. True, there are those whose apprecia- tion of what is lovely is very deep and sincere, and who are yet unable to tell, through the medium of any art, what they feel ; but it holds good gener- ally, that the man of unusual sensibility finds some method of making known to his fellow-men the consciousness of his delighted observation. This artist-love is patient. Nature gives up her secrets grudgingly, and only to those vigilant watchers who are ever waiting, ready to receive and thank her, doth slie mete out from her bountiful stores. It follows, then, that the artist should be of large and generous vision ; of simple and unbiassed mind ; one who with kindly eye will note the beauty of his life and surroundings, and, with Love as his inspiration and his guide, write of men and things, — for is not Love the only true narrative power in the world . The long, oftentimes dreary, term of probation that the artist is willing to endure to enable him at last to express what his soul would be saying, might be lightened and sweetened if it were impressed on the student that the mere science of Art is scarce a definable thing, so intimately is it wedded to feeling and instinct ; and what is known as ' technique ' is not a teachable quantity, for what constitutes perfect technique in one master means ineptitude in another. At best, erudition or academic formula is
