He is the first monarch after chaos. He succeeds to a long interregnum of anarchy which constitutes a mere blank in the history of the country. His throne will be raised upon ruins which are not of his making -upon the debris of a power which had crumbled into the dust half a century before his arrival. The founding of his empire is like building a city upon the site of another which had long perished, and with which the new one does not enter into rivalry, but simply replaces. England wishes him good-speed. And among the strange events of the future it may possibly happen that the House of Hapsburg may be the head of a great and flourishing empire in the New World after the original empire in Europe has been broken into pieces. The intervention in Mexico is a remarkable episode in the policy of Napoleon III., and as such will not fail to attract the regard of future historians. It is a task as novel as it is honourable for a monarch to attempt the regeneration of a country other than his own, to carry civilisation and prosperity into a region of the globe where they have fallen into decay, even though he undertook the task primarily with a view to his own interests. To raise a country thrice as large as France from a state of chronic desolation-to pierce it with railways, to reconstruct the old watercourses of irrigation, to reopen the rich mines, and to make the waste places blossom with flowers and fruits and useful plants, is certainly a noble design. And still nobler is it to rescue a population of eight mil lions from anarchy, demoralisation, and suffering, and to restore to them, in better fashion than they ever had before, the protection of the State and the benefactions of the Church. Lawlessness and rapine, wastefulness and oppression -no public virtue and no private enterprise-such has been the condition of Mexico for many years. Napoleon, it is true, does not undertake to remedy these evils himself, but he has made a beginning, he has taken the first step which is proverbially so difficult. He has placed the Mexicans on a vantageground which they could not have obtained for themselves, and he gives to them a Government temporarily aided by his troops, recognised by the Powers of Europe, and possessing a fair amount of credit in other countries, by which the work of regenerating the moral and material condition of Mexico may be carried out. He has cleared away the old obstructions-he has founded the new empire; and whatever be the ultimate results of his enterprise, he has thereby added fresh laurels to his renown, which are all the more honourable since they are voted to him by the world at large. So far as it has gone, the intervention has been successful, and the Napoleonic idea has a good prospect of being fully realized. Meanwhile two important ends have been attained. The expedition has paid its expenses-the cost of the intervention is to be refunded to France by the new Government, which likewise takes upon itself the charge of maintaining the French troops which are to be left in Mexico. The enterprise, moreover, has successfully engaged the thoughts of the French people during a period when the Emperor found it advisable to remain at peace in Europe. France is still in a condition in which the stimulus of military action abroad is requisite to keep her quiescent at home. The Emperor's Mexican idea has served this purpose as well as others. And Europe has been thankful that the French have been amused otherwise than at her expense. But the Mexican idea, so far as regards the direct action of France, is now at an end; and, looking at the circumstances of Europe as well as at the fact that the Emperor's hands are again free, we think the Continental Powers may now feel as King John did when, at the close of the tournament at Ashby de la Zouch, he received the brief but significant warning, "The devil has got loose." THE LONDON ART SEASON. THE three leading Exhibitions and as the taste of purchasers the Academy, the Old Water-Col- becomes from day to day more our, and the New Water-Colour highly educated, so are our Engare at least of average interest and lish artists stimulated by increased merit. Indeed, the general opinion reward, and yet, at the same time, is, that the collective pictures of held in wholesome check by the the year show, if slow, at all events discriminative power of public steady and satisfactory progress opinion. Still further, the adupon the pictorial products of pre- vance which has been made in all vious seasons. It is true that no branches of knowledge, the develnew or startling phenomena have opment of inductive science, espearisen that no star or comet of cially in those departments which surpassing magnitude has come to lie close upon nature, and the exshed unaccustomed brilliancy over traordinary activity which, in every the world of Art. Still, light is direction, has seized upon the hunot lacking to our hemisphere, nor man intellect, ever eager to enter on beauty wanting to the painter's fair new enterprise-these restless mocreations. The power which be- tions in the universal mind renderlongs to knowledge, the charm ing absolute stagnation, even within which pertains to simple truth, and the tranquil world of art, imposthe reward that follows on honest sible-have imparted to our painters labour, each year, even in the ab- corresponding impulse. Moreover, sence of long-looked-for and oft- we think, notwithstanding occapromised genius, give to our Eng- sional symptoms to the contrary. lish school accumulative worth. that enterprise of intellect is now And, moreover, other causes CO- more than formerly governed by operate towards this progression, sobriety of judgment; that imaover which, with reason, we rejoice. gination, though at seasons ready England has reached that point in to break wildly loose, is in the end the history of nations when the reined in by sober sense. The arts are accustomed to spring into drama, indeed, may degenerate for luxuriant growth. She has long short intervals into sensational expassed the period of pinching pen- cess; romances may, in the hands ury, wherein imagination is oft- of some writers, indulge in extravatimes stunted and starved. She gance; but before long we can rest has, at least in her higher classes, satisfied that truth to nature and escaped from the drudgery which, allegiance to conscience as the siwhile it wears away the body, lent yet potent witness to rectitude, grinds down the mind - which will obtain the ascendance. makes the finer senses of humanity thus it is within the special sphere obtuse, and too often darkens the of pictorial art likewise; mistaken eye to the beauty of the outward ardour may for a time mislead; creation. England, we say, has, in extravagance such as that of which the onward march of her civilisa- the so-called Preraphaelites were tion, left in the path behind these guilty may for a few short years arid tracts, and now enters a garden betray the inexperience of youth; of delight, redolent with flowers. but in the end we can be sure, as And of all the gems which adorn indeed now we rejoice to be, that, daily life of all the decorations in the well-balanced English mind which add charm to our homes moderation will prevail. Thus have pictures are, perhaps, the most we endeavoured to set forth the sought after. And as this demand reasons why our Exhibitions show is each year growing in its compass, amelioration. The causes do not And lie in the rise of any transcendent power, or in the display of creative originality by the artists themselves. The impetus to progression, on the contrary, comes, as we have seen, from without; the painter is merely the 'child of the age in which he lives, the mirror that reflects the form and fashion of his time and country. Thus it is that our Eng. lish school is emphatically English, and that our annual Exhibitions serve as pictorial chronicles to the day and generation in which our lot is cast. This is, indeed, high commendation -- yet, after all, not the highest; for there is an injunction which Schiller lays upon the artist that we would here repeat by way, if not of censure, at least of caution. "Live," says this poet philosopher," with your century, but be not its creature; bestow upon your contemporaries not what they praise, but what they need. Though you may regard them as they are if you are tempted to work for them, imagine them as they should be if you are to influence and raise them." Our Exhibitions, it must be admitted, show little indication that painters are striving for this command over the intellect of their age. Content to follow, few desire to lead. For the most part, they paint in order to win the wherewithal to live, and, thus living for the present, few, it may be feared, will survive the century which has witnessed the beginning and will see the close of their labours. Armitage, Watts, and in some measure Leighton, have a right to rank among those disciples of high art who, fulfilling the behest of Schiller, work less for present times than for posterity. Forsaking forms positive and individual, they seek truths generic and absolute; they make the accident of nature submit to the proportions prescribed by aesthetic law; they require rude reality to bend to ideal beauty; and thus they ascend to the sphere of historic or philosophic art, a lofty region which only a few venturous spirits dare to tread. Edward Armitage, in the picture of 'Ahab and Jezebel,' attains heroic proportion, and with size comes commensurate dignity. King Ahab, a figure seven and a half feet high, reclines on a couch: his wife, the infamous Jezebel, stands at his head with the fury of a tigress and the appetite of a vulture, uttering the upbraiding words, "Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, eat bread, and let thine heart be merry; I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." But the king lies sad and sick, and the grapes and the wine are put aside untasted. Mr. Armitage has sought, and not without success, to reconcile the broad generic treatment of the older historic style with the literal detail which is now dominant in our modern school. Rich regal robes and sumptuous palatial decorations are studiously transcribed from the works of Mr. Layard, or taken direct from the Assyrian remains in the British Museum. It is also interesting to mark how the artist has given to his picture the manner of an ancient bas-relief, how he has brought the liberty allowed to the one art under subjection to the severity imposed by the other. What we mean will be better understood by an appeal to the designs on Greek vases, the purest and best examples of which illustrate the transformation through which sculpture emerged into painting; or, in other words, these monochrome pictures of the Greeks reveal sculpture as the elder and the parent art. Mr. Armitage deserves praise for the courage required in the adoption of this self denying manner, for experience proves that a facile pictorial treatment is in the present day the surest road to popular applause. We are sorry, however, to see that in one vital point he submits to a compromise. Repose and equanimity, Winckelmann tells us, the Greeks deemed inseparable from the noblest art; and our own Reynolds offers some apology, or at least explanation, for the violence of passion which the · sculptor has thrown into the agonised features of the Laocoon. Now we should be sorry to bind a painter down to strict compliance with conditions which may prove a bondage even to the sculptor; but as Mr. Armitage of his own free will puts himself under the law, we need have less scruple in saying that the ordinance imposed as a canon of high art-which is, after all, not artificial, but essential-he has transgressed, and that much to the loss of dignity and quiet power. The figure of Jezebel, especially in the passionate spasm of the hand, is melodramatic. Mr. Watts, in his design, Time and Oblivion,' also challenges severe criticism. The very explanation which he gives of his intent, that this personification of Time and Oblivion,' is "a de sign for sculpture," "to be executed in divers materials after the manner of Phidias," alone suggests comparisons which it is difficult for any work to sustain. Yet may we at least accord to this perilous attempt somewhat of the largeness in masses and the grandeur of manner which are peculiar characteristics of the Phidian era. Only we must be permitted to object that the artist has essayed a Herculean labour considerably beyond his powers. The figures are not ill conceived, the idea is not inaptly expressed; but the drawing is certainly wanting in mastery, and the difficult passages in the composition appear slurred rather than solved. The aspirations of Mr. Watts, as seen in the fresco executed in the dining hall of Lincoln's Inn, are ever lofty; but technical power, which would give to his noble ideas adequate pictorial development, seems lacking. A small head hy this artist, called Choosing,' is altogether lovely, and especially to be com--such are the scenes congenial to mended for harmony of colour. the genius of this painter. The The genius of Mr. Leighton has theme he has here selected is ardufor years lain in chaos, or broken ous, the style to which he aspires out only in rebellion. Possessed ambitious. Imagination has inof more than ordinary erudition, vested Dante in no ordinary digniimpelled by an ambition which ty; a historic halo shadows and yet soared to the highest style, and shines upon that brow awful in essayed the most arduous of subjects, this artist has for some time attracted to his works a wondering gaze. It always becomes a curious question, as it long was and still is with a brother artist, the painter of The Vale of Rest,' and of St. Agnes' Eve,' What astounding work Mr. Leighton may do next? Will he show us a harem, will be introduce us to houris, will he conduct us to Hades, or will he bid us take a walk on Parnassus? Certain it is that whoever presumes to follow in the eccentric flight of this artist will do well to provide himself with wings. As for the ordinary faculties of humanity, plain sober eye-sight,. clear common-sense, and the like, they may be dispensed with altogether, and the adventurer through space or across the broad field of history need only take to himself a copious supply of transcendental reason and gaseous imagination. As in other aeronautic expeditions, the chief danger lies in the approach to, and the coming in contact with, mother earth. But whatever lawlessness may have marked Mr. Leighton's past career, we are bound to concede that the courses on which he has now entered claim from the critic respectful homage. The powers which have hitherto been scattered are at length concentrated, so that in the latest of Mr. Leighton's works, 'Dante in Exile,' the vapourings of genius now shine as true visions. The artist here reverts with maturer power to the country and the epoch chosen in his earliest and hitherto most successful picture, The Procession of Cimabue.' Italy of the middle ages, crowded with illustrious characters, poets, painters, patriots—a country whose very stones are eloquent in undying memories เ grandeur; and the artist who at which unsophisticated nature might tempts to realise the image which with advantage occupy. By his fineevery cultured mind has already drawn subtleties he delights and painted in his fancy, does indeed cheats the senses which in surfeit essay a task of peculiar difficulty, would gladly turn to a repast more Mr. Leighton, we think, has come simply dressed and decked. The through this ordeal with honour. taint which often mars the creations The moment chosen discovers of this artist, eats, in another of his Dante, an exile from his native city, works, as a cancer into the fair in the palace of his patron, Can' forms of Eurydice and Orpheus,' Grande della Scala, Prince of Ver- ―a picture, nevertheless, which ona. This master of the Lombard contains passages which no critirepublic reigned with a splendour cism can rob of their beauty-giving which no other of the princes in charm. The transcendentalism, Italy had equalled. At his court however, into which this painter is were congregated the poets, paint- betrayed, is not only excessive in ers, and sculptors who cast upon degree, but wrong in kind. Michael the opening years of the fourteenth Angelo, Raphael, and all truly , century unaccustomed lustre. But great painters, indeed, have reached we are told that the pride of Dante loftiest heights, and yet they walkcould ill brook patronage; that his ed even when on the topmost sumhigh spirit rebelled against gilded mits, hand in hand with nature. dependence; and so, by the rough- Sibyls, apostles, prophets, muses, ness of his manner and the haughti- they painted; yet was humanity, ness of his bearing, he lost the fav- however glorified, never made to our of a friend who had given him wander from paths of simplicity, or an asylum. This story may be read permitted to wanton in debilitating word for word in the picture be- luxury. Let Mr. Leighton remem fore us. The lines quoted declare, ber, then, that the best nature and in terms not to be mistaken, the the truest art preserve a stamina poet's mind:vigorous and healthful. The painter is literal to the poet's text. Dante, careworn and painstricken, descends the palace-stairs. The motley crew of courtiers, the Faid jester, and ladies who, by enficing beauty, might have charmed the melancholy heart stricken with the love of Beatrice, all fall back at the approach of the prophet-poet, who as an avenging god walks the earth. Mr. Leighton, we have said, has accomplished the task here set more than creditably. The knowledge he brings, the academic training he displays, no one can queston. His learning, in fact, is almost in excess; his artistic tact and contrivance, indeed, usurp the place Our English school, while comparatively barren in products of high, heroic, or sacred art, is prolific in works which lie on the frontiers of history. Our native painters seldom narrate the annals of their country on a large folio scale; they are content, for the most part, to put their facts within the limits of an octavo or duodecimo edition, and thus they seldom addict themselves to the grand march of nations, but choose rather the by-ways of a people's progress, and delight in the episodes wherewith families or individuals have rendered a province or a generation memorable. The artists who each year betake themselves to this pleasing and prolific style are not only increasing in numbers, but advancing in proficiency. Calderon, Crowe, Yeames, Pettie, Storey, Hayllar, and Mrs. Ward, have one and all enriched the Academy with works which deserve explicit commendation. Mrs. |