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216 They were sure that Mr. Wyke Bayliss, at any rate, was free from the Whistlerian taint. Much was said in the early autumn as to the fine show that was soon to be opened at the familiar rooms in Suffolk Street : how the mockers were to be confounded, and the arch- blasphemer made to squirm in his ruthlessly sesthetic abode in Chelsea ; and how the ' gentlemen of the press ' were to be won over to unwavering allegiance. And indeed it did seem as if such predictions would be in great part fulfilled : for not only was it known that the British Remnant was burning to distinguish itself, but the rumour was industriously spread that some 2500 canvases, over and above those anticipated from members, had been sent in — mainly an overflow from the Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, which had un- expectedly opened about a month earlier than usual. Surely, it was reasonable to conclude, out of such ai'tistic largesse many tit-bits would fall to the R.S.B.A. But, alas, for all evidence to the contrary, the 2;)00 uninvited canvases might have gone elsewhere in their disconsolate appeal. It was another artist in the comedy of incongruity who invented the word ' chortle.' Well, Mr. Whistler and his friends are now chortling. The society in Sufl^olk. Street, if not so excruciatingly British as of yore, is again in a moribund condition. A general flabbiness is its characteristic. There is nothing by any member that is really noteworthy, and there is a great deal that bores one as much as a two- hour Gaelic sermon would have bored a Greek audience. Canvas after canvas, wall after wall, is dreary with mediocrity — mediocrity of technique, mediocrity of import, mediocrity of artistic emotion. Here and there is an excellent drawing or a creditable painting, but a few snow-showers don't make a winter. There is an east-country proverb, that ' a lost chance flies owre the sea' : by this time the chance which the R.S.B.A. has lost must have flown numberless leagues — or been drowned, poor thing. Seriously, the present ex- hibition is — as it was understood it would be — a crucial one. It was recognised that if, metaphorically speaking, it came down heads, the ' chortling ' would be on the part of the members ; but that if it came down tails, the Whistlerian cackle would be loud and long. Well, it is not the British artists who now chortle. The whole affair has been regarded with interest by artists through- out the country, for it was realised that one of the last battles of artistic Torydom was about to be fought. If the present exhibition had been generally hailed as an unqualified success, thei'e can be no doubt that institu- tions and societies throughout the country would have taken the hint, and the third-rate men would have everywhere had a new lease of prosperity. But it will now be equally widely realised that both the critical and the best public taste are against mediocrity, and are in favour of invention, imagination, novelty, assured and idiosyncratic excellence of technique, and, in a word, of genius. This, moreover, even at the risk, or rather with the certainty, of many eccentricities, and perhaps some banalities. It is a welcome sign that discomfiture has not awaited Mr. Whistler and the numerous young and able men who withdrew with him from the ' British artists ' ; and though the latter has not yet gone back to the dreadful commonplaceness of Pre-Whistlerian days, such ultimate result of the dis- ruption is almost inevitable. It might have been expected that the members of an Academy who could hesitate between the election to R.A.-ship of Mr. Burgess and Mr. Andrew Gow on the one part, and of Mr. Hubert Herkomer and Mr. Burne-Jones on the other, would have supported their confreres in Suffolk Street ; but as a matter of fact they have been chary of assistance. Two prominent members, however, have lent a helping hand. Sir Frederick Leighton sends five small pieces, 'A Study,' 'A Study for Daphnephoriri,' and three 'Sketches from Rhodes.' All are dainty, delicate, and refined ; but none has any claim to be considered important. More noteworthy is the canvas of 'Ganymede,' by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A. It is not, unfortunately, a good example of that great but most unequal artist. The values are not sympathetic, or are too emphatic : the persistent flesh-browns have an efl^ect of crudeness : and the draughtsmanship, particu- larly in the hands, is obviously unsatisfactory. Among the really praiseworthy contributions are Mr. Henry Moore's ' Becalmed in the Alderney Race ' ; some pleasant Channel and South Coast marine studies by G. S. Walters ; C. S. Mottram's vigorous and realistic ' In the Wake of the Margate Boat ' ; Carl Haag's ' Coraan Reader ' ; James E. Grace's ' Evening Mists ' ; Edwin Ellis's able and unconventional coast studies, greatly improved in everj' way from previous work of the kind ; and Mr. Sherwood Hunter's Ave Maria. It is an outsider, however, who is far and away the most notewoi'thy exhibitor at the present show, — the young Dutch artist, M. Hubert Vos, whose portraiture is imconventional without eccentricity, and impressive by just means and methods. For the rest, in their com- placent unattractiveness, one can but con over again Edward Lear's admirable phrase, unless it be to sub- stitute therefor another from the same source, and bewail ' the serene and sickly suavity of the truly ' —'British.' ' W. S.

Birmingham Exhibition.— There are 84S pictures in the gallery, and one might pick 100 among them which would be good or fairly good, Bouguereau's * First Sorrow ' is the best piece of painting there ; the drawing and composition are excellent. The well-known Stanhope Forbes' ' The Village Philharmonic ' shines out across the large round room like the window of a village inn at night, and Burne - Jones' ' Danae ' needs no praise. The water-colours are singularly old fashioned ; but Mr. Crane is to the fore with his admirable contempt of nature, and Miss Clara Montalba's few drawings are stars among dun-coloured clouds. Still, in spite of the lack of true feeling, and the absence of modern technique both in oil and water-colour, this Exhiliition undoubtedly does good, and the society may produce in the end some good men, while even bad pictures are belter than none at all from one point of view, and that is when we regard them as evidences of desire to see truly and do good work if possible.