Page:Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1868 (IA gri 33125011175656).pdf/36

 treated with some graceful incident and execution, and very genuinely graceful feeling. The present group counts among the best of them.

948. —Elaine with the Shield of Sir Launcelot.—The maiden loves and muses, and pines as she muses; but as yet her doom only hovers over her pityingly. The feeling of reserve and purity, of the new experience of love timidly entertained, and yet already permeating her whole life, and absorbing all her forces into its own surging and resistless current, is predominant in this figure. Along with this, and with much simplicity of pose and motive, one readily perceives that the whole thing is uncommonly treated—uncommonly rather than unusually. The face has more of personal individuality, the turn of the figure more shades of variety within unity, the execution throughout more distinction, than British sculpture accustoms us to. So also with the hands and feet: their peculiarities are all significant and forecast, though to my eye they do not sufficiently partake of the beauty of delicacy. Compare—or contrast would be the word—this statuette with

981. —Elaine.

984. —Astronomy.—A bronze colossal figure, destined for the Prince-Consort memorial in Hyde Park. It has a good decorative look, and adequate grandeur of pose and line. It might fairly (so far as one can judge before it is placed in situ) be termed a proportional work; one, that is, in which the conception, treatment, and general force of impression, have relation to its scale, and to its destination as one in a series of impersonating figures.

987. —The Dawn.—The sentiment of this figure is well expressed in two lines from the MS. quotation:—

The Dawn, whose splendour is a promise still, Heralding more than Day can e'er fulfil."

It is the sentiment of an ushering-in, an announcement, something to come. Mr. Leifchild has produced several sculptural works eminent for thoughtfulness in concentration, The present figure belongs to a different order of work, yet something of the same spirit can be traced in it.