refore, you, the British public, are
requested to walk in and see the show. We wish this motto affectation
were put an end to--the Royal Academy are sadly puzzled year after year
to hit upon a piece of Latin that will do, and their labour in that line
is often in vain. And certainly this intimation from Suffolk Street,
which might be very useful to a young barrister preparing for the
circuit, is now to the "matter in hand" _nihil ad rem_. But have not we
heard that motto before? We believe it was the last year's, and is we
suppose to become an annual repetition _in secula seculorum_. The
exhibition is, however, very respectable; we fear it is not so well
attended as it deserves to be. The fact is, that the Academy, with its
innumerable works, becomes, before it is half gone through, a very
tiresome affair. What with straining at raw crude colours, and pictures
out of sight, the public, who feel they must go there, have had enough
of work for weary eyes; and imagining the other gallery to be inferior,
go not to it. Yet, after a little rest, they would, we are sure, feel
gratified in Suffolk Street. If there are but half-a-dozen good
pictures, they are worth going to see, and certainly this exhibition has
its very fair proportion of works of merit, and interest. Nor is there
any lack of variety. We have only to make remarks upon a very few, not
at all wishing to have it believed that we have selected either the best
or the worst. There is novelty in some of Mr Woolmer's pictures. He
seems, however, undetermined as to style; for his pictures are here very
unequal. In one or two he is imitating Turner, but it is to have
"confusion worse confounded." And singularly enough, in such imitations,
his subjects are of repose. "A Scene in the Middle Ages, suggested by a
visit to Haddon Hall," is very pleasing. The style here is suggestive,
and judiciously so; he generalizes, and we are pleased to imagine. We
see elegant figures walking under shade of trees, clear refreshing green
shade; the composition is graceful, and fit for the speculative or
enamoured loiterers. Perhaps the foreground is too ambitious--too much
worked to effect. If this be done for the sake of contrast, it is a
mistake of the proper effect of, and proper place for, contrast. In such
a scene of ease and gentleness, all contrast is far better avoided; it
always has a tendency to make active; and is to be applied in proportion
to the degree of life and activity that