A GREAT DEAL OF fun is poked, much of it with justice, at the modern habit of inviting persons whose names are for any reason known to the public, to air their views on subjects which are not their own. But there is something to be said for the venting of non-specialist opinion. After all, the appeal of the Arts, with which we are here concerned, is ultimately to ‘the general’; and it is all to the good that members of that body should now and then give expression to their response, provided it is understood that if they do not speak as the scribes neither do they speak with authority. It is also, I think, true that an artist by profession is likely to have his judgment swayed by his own artistic tendencies, while an outsider has more freedom to be catholic. I myself, though I am not without having handled a brush, have never carried practice far enough to become involved in any particular line of aesthetic thought, and can gather the harvest of an unprejudiced eye.
But, confronted with the Royal Academy Exhibition, even a specialist might well feel diffident. The oil paintings alone number this year 681, and they are of necessity hung so close together that it is a real exercise of concentration to isolate them and consider each in its own entity: nowhere are ‘the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes’ better exemplified than when a quietly beautiful piece is shouted down by a garish neighbour. To look properly at a hundred pictures a day is all that may become a man: and here are enough to take up more than the working days of a week. Injustice is therefore unavoidable, and on any other footing than that of exchanging notes with the public of which I am a member I could not consent to speak. In any case, my object will be to pick out the works which I can praise, not those which I should like to bury.
First and supreme there reigns throughout these scenes the youthful genius of the lamented Orpen, whose memory is honoured by the inclusion of three early works. The beauty and imaginative power of the ‘Play Scene from Hamlet’ must be banished from the mind before the many other excellent pictures in the big room can get their due. It is such a sight as a young (and slightly mocking) poet might dream on his way to the Old Vic. The lovely, shimmering-green ‘Empty Bed’ and the radiant portrait of his wife have the same glow of inspiration, and put in the shade the high competence of his later likenesses. Sir John Lavery has often laid his alert observation and agile hand at the joint service of history and art in recording the scenes and events of our national life, and his painting of ‘Their Majesties’ Court’ is the crown of his achievement in this kind. The accuracy of the representation has not conflicted with the broad sweep of the design or the subtly echoing colour of the ladies’ gowns, the uniforms of the men, the blue-grey walls, and the ‘starry lamps and blazed cressets’ above. A somewhat similar subject, ‘The Opening of Parliament, Ottawa’, is also admirably presented by Mr Richard Jack.
In a perfect world Mr Sickert’s ‘Raising of Lazarus’ would have a wall to itself. The emerald green of the lower figure, enhanced as it is by the pale gold beside it and the great burst of crimson above, is as gorgeous a tincture as has ever been put on canvas. The extreme deadness and mattness of the black background is made to look unintentional by the dabs of shiny paint which fleck it here and there, and we might be more comfortable if it had a coat of varnish; but this, even if I am right, is nothing in comparison with force of the design and the splendour of the colour. The president’s presentation pieces are admirable in their dignified reserve, and Mr Francis Dodd shows a masterly portrait of Lord Hugh Cecil in which he has combined the sterner side of his character with the solution of what must have been a difficult technical problem in the subduing to an astringent harmony of the queer orange and maroon of the doctor’s gown. Mr Oswald Birley’s picture of Lord Irwin in full panoply is so like that it almost speaks.
Another portrait which interested me on personal grounds was Mr Wheatley’s luminous ‘General Smuts’, apparently disposing himself to play cat’s cradle; but the painter’s palette seems to have been invaded by a strong detachment of custard powder. Mr Gerald Kelly has reached No. XXXII in his charming and accomplished series of ‘Janes’, and it is a like tribute to Hymen that Mr de Glehn’s ‘The Beloved’ is probably his masterpiece. Mr Connard has two excellent small-figure groups in the first room. He has suffused the Arts Club with a light that never was in club or bar, and it would be amusing to see the members in Mr Nowell’s version transfigured in it. ‘The Reggie Grenfells’ would perhaps have been almost too dramatic if the lady had been given anything to look at with the intensity which her husband is bestowing on the tongue of her Pekingese. Boswell tells us that Lord Clive committed suicide because he was ‘weary of still life’; but his lordship would have survived the present exhibition. There is a strange absence of the apples, loaves, guitars and dishcloths which pervade the general run of galleries, but I noticed some pleasant flower pieces by Mr Stephen Bone and Miss Cecil Leslie.
Landscapes, on the other hand, are bewilderingly many. Mrs Swynnerton’s ‘Storm-tossed Willow’, in its perfect spontaneity and authenticity, is perhaps in a class by itself; but great pleasure may also be had from Mr Talmage, Mr Sydney Lee, Mr George Graham, Mr Bateman, Mr Lamorna Birch, Sir H. Hughes-Stanton, with his fine eye for a subject, Mr Arnesby-Brown’s ‘The Beach’, with its splash of sunlight in the foreground against the lovely greys of the sky, and Mr Oliver Hall’s austere but tender browns, especially in his ‘Alcantara Bridge’. Mr Munnings breaks new ground in ‘From my Bedroom Window’, triumphantly gay and summery, with its background of candle-kindled chestnut trees. Few will be able to pass by carelessly Mr Mark Symons’s ‘In the Street of the Great City’. The sharp contrasts of its tessellated design attract the eye from afar. Many will be affronted or distressed by a close inspection. We do not think that they will be any the worse for the varying messages which issue from the canvas. It is at the least a remarkable ceiling piece.
In the pictures for the Bank of England the artists give a remarkable and theoretically laudable display of teamwork, in which they seem to find the lowest common factor of their talents; it is almost impossible to tell one man’s work from another’s, and this self-abnegation, perhaps, accounts for a general air of stiffness and aridity which is emphasized by the adjacent vividness of Mr Gunn’s trio of distinguished writers. To those for whom the Academy is incomplete without a ‘problem picture’, I commend ‘A Director Announcing the Bank Rate to the Chief Officials’, which for this purpose should be renamed ‘Breaking the News’. The problem would be: is the Bank Rate up or down? As we gaze upon the faces and immaculate tailorings of these rulers of the City of London, who have guided our monetary policy through these eventful years until it has reached almost perfect stultification, we cannot help wondering whether these panels will be an inspiration to the future generations in the Bank of England. They may, at any rate, serve as monitors against much that should be avoided both in finance and art.
The architectural room is not in my province, but I cannot end these random remarks without congratulating Sir Edwin Lutyens, Liverpool, and the Pope on the magnificent series of designs for the Metropolitan Cathedral. The general and final impression of this year’s Royal Academy is most pleasing. There is an almost complete absence of slovenly or impudent work. Care and fidelity in definition and value are distinguished throughout the galleries. Aspiring painters are taught that a high level of technical proficiency with brush and pencil is one of the criteria by which they will be judged. Excursions into bizarre impressionism may be accepted from those who have proved their credentials. But slap-dash and short cuts to fame or notoriety are evidently, and rightly, discouraged. My other prevailing impression is the gaiety and love of colour which characterize our art at the present time. We do not have much sunshine in our island, but the English people in every walk of life delight in flowers and gardens, and greet our grey skies with more flowers than any other people grow. This year’s Royal Academy reflects with remarkable, if unconscious, truth this English and island taste.