Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/79

68 this work in its general effect. The picture is rather an index to the book of explanation, than the book to the picture; and the eye wanders in vain amidst a promiscuous throng of kings, quakers, legislators, and naked Indians, for a centre of interest and a point of unity. If it be objected that this defect was inherent in the subject, the inference is, that the subject ought not to have been chosen; but, even when such incongruities were no natural adjuncts, Barry sometimes went in search of them. He stopped at nothing in the shape of an illustration; and, in the picture of the "Triumph of the Thames," considering music a necessary accompaniment on that occasion, he has thrown a musician in his wig into the water, who, luckily for himself, being an expert swimmer, is seen coquetting among the naiads.

Barry's inadequacy, in the peculiar qualifications of a painter, is still more evident in his colouring and execution. His works at the Adelphi are stained designs rather than pictures. In a work of such extent, the artist may, perhaps, be excused for a deficiency in some qualities which are indispensable in smaller performances but, if the absence of tone and surface be permitted on the score of magnitude, that extenuation cannot apply to the want of clear and characteristic colouring. If the figures of Rubens are said to have fed on roses, those of Barry may be pronounced to have battened on bricks. One frowsy red pervades his flesh tones, and, consequently, there is little or no complexional distinction of age, sex, or character; certainly, the eye is not offended by any glaring obtrusion of tints; and, so far, the pictures are in harmony. There can be no discord where there is no opposition.

We have particularised Barry's defects without compunction, because, giving them their full force, he stands on an eminence which bids defiance to criticism. If Socrates had been a painter instead of a sculptor, and had chosen to illustrate his doctrines by a graphical, rather