sometimes permits himself the use of a violent black which is altogether
unjustifiable. A picture of Roslin Chapel exhibited in 1844, showed this
defect in the recess to which the stairs descend, in an extravagant
degree; and another exhibited in the British Institution, instead of
showing the exquisite crumbling and lichenous texture of the Roslin
stone, was polished to as vapid smoothness as every French historical
picture. The general feebleness of the effect is increased by the
insertion of the figures as violent pieces of local color unaffected by
the light and unblended with the hues around them, and bearing evidence
of having been painted from models or draperies in the dead light of a
room instead of sunshine. On these deficiencies I should not have
remarked, but that by honest and determined painting from and of nature,
it is perfectly in the power of the artist to supply them; and it is
bitterly to be regretted that the accuracy and elegance of his work
should not be aided by that genuineness of hue and effect which can only
be given by the uncompromising effort to paint not a fine picture but an
impressive and known _verity_.

The two artists whose works it remains for us to review, are men who
have presented us with examples of the treatment of every kind of
subject, and among the rest with portions of architecture which the best
of our exclusively architectural draughtsmen could not excel.

Sec. 36. Clarkson Stanfield.

The frequent references made to the works of Clarkson Stanfield
throughout the subsequent pages render it less necessary for me to
speak of him here at any length. He is the leader of the English
Realists, and perhaps among the more remarkable of his characteristics
is the look of common-sense and rationality which his compositions will
always bear when opposed to any kind of affectation. He appears to think
of no other artist. What he has learned, has been from his own
acquaintance with and affection for the steep hills and the deep sea;
and his modes of treatment are alike removed from sketchiness or
incompletion, and from exaggeration or effort. The somewhat over-prosaic
tone of his subjects is rather a condescension to what he supposes to be
public feeling, than a sign of want of feeling in himself; for in some
of his sketches from nature or from fancy, I have seen powers and
perceptions manifested of a far higher order than any that are traceable
in his Academy works, powers which I