Page:Scottishartrevie01unse.djvu/70

54 T the present time, after the French the English school ranks decidedly next in importance. If we do not find in it the quick fancy and modernness of the Parisian, there is not the heavy Grseco-romantic sentiment of tiie German, nor the trivial prettiness of the Italian sculptors of millinery. In the art of England, as in the people, there is that wise reserve and valuable strain of judicious- ness which avoids alike the shallows of realism and the barren rock of conventionality, and may be expected to win such victories as will be worthy of the national poetry. With such young men as Thornycroft and Gilbert as precursors, there is e'ery liope for the sculptors of the coming generations. In the works of those men and one or two others we have for the first time true sculpture distinctly national in character, bearing the culture of the art, but in the following of no foreign school. At the Glasgow Exhibition recent English sculpture is to be seen at its best. Its strength and character may be estimated from the works shown by Thornycroft, Leighton, and Woolner ; its variety from the exhibits of Bates, Lee, Birch, and Tinwortli. Of all these, Mr. Hamo Thornycroft is the most important exhibitor, and we feel prompted to examine his work searcliingly, to seek behind his armour of art and learning for some weakness other than fault of form or error of j udgment. In his work generally we should be pleased to find a little more of the abandon of life and a little less of that classic calm by which it is distinguished ; but would we be more satisfied ? Is it not this very cliaracter of balance, this freedom from aught of eccenti-icity in form or sentiment, which gives it permanent value ? It has nothing fleeting, nothing of the electric effect of A. Boucher''s group of runners, which takes us by storm, and goes whirling past to forgetfulness. In the Fencer we have a motive demanding fire and activity, and allowing an opportunity for the dramatic ; but the instant selected for repre- sentation has been perfectly calculated, and its expression realised with mathematical precision in a fine form like a regular crystal. Here, it may be, lies the direction of defect. Mr. Thornycroft's work, in its well-understood parts, balance of form, and rhythm of line, is like architecture, more a pro- duct of the intellect tlian the lieart, and deficient in the expression of that ' fine frenzy ■■ which gives to great imaginings in art their soulful element of suggestion and mystery. But after all, this is a very fine kind of hair-splitting and somewliat hyper- critical. Hamo Thornycroft is the first of Englisli sculptors, and his work is worthy of careful study and the highest appreciation. The work of Sir Frederick Leighton in Sculpture has a certain grace of line and expression peculiai-ly its own, partly no doubt the outcome of the artist's study in the lighter freer medium of painting. Needless alarms is specially cliaracteristic of this quality. It is a dainty statuette, full of niceties of movement, and as airily poised as a butterfly on the tip of a flower. Sculpture is not in fashion, else surely this little gem now exliibited for the third time would ere this have found a purchaser. The Sluggard is a work of marked distinction in style, intended to represent a noble youth wlio has fallen a prey to slothful ease. He stands lazily stretching his graceful limbs after a too prolonged siesta, and treads underfoot, symbolically, the laurels he might have won. Although affording a fine opportunity for movement and line which has been ably treated in a most dignified and chaste manner, the pose selected is insufficiently determined in action ; it is too transient and trivial in character to be worthy of expression in a life-size bronze. This fine figure of a liandsome young fellow about to yawn, even with the help of trodden laurels, fails adequately to express wliat is to be inferred from the title of wasted hours and golden opportunities lost. For all it says to the contrary it might represent instead of a sluggard a sleepy victor retiring to his tent con- temptuous of fleeting honours. Mr. T. Woolner's large panel entitled Virgilia heicailing the banishment of Coriolanus is clearly ex- pressive of its sentiment, and breathes of the Greek spirit well understood. Virgilia mourns over the arms of lier absent lord, and, in the background, in low relief, he is seen cliarging in the thick of battle as her high-wrought imagination has conceived. The eork is of classic, monumental simplicity, and shows a thorough perception of the limitations of the medium.

The panels of Mr. Harry Bates are very fascinat- ing. The breadtli and strength of handling in the Mneas and Dido are quite remarkable. The Homer is also very fine, but shows a slight overbalance towards decorative arrangements of mass and line, which jars somewhat on the realistic detail in the figure of Homer. In the spacing and placing of parts of the composition, the element of calculation is just a little too apparent, and tends to detract