whatever has been done, except that I am partly deaf for a time. My ears seem half disposed to strike work. They further express their resentment at the great and sudden increase of barometric pressure to which their delicate drums have been exposed in such a hasty descent by sundry crackings and sudden noises at intervals. Two or three hours elapse before they recover their normal condition.

We have landed very near the sea-wall, and won the race by about one minute, more or less. Thus happily ends one of my earliest ballooning experiences.

HENRY ELSDALE.

THE EXHIBITING OF PICTURES.1

ONCE upon a time Royal Academicians were fined for not exhibiting, and the Royal Academy was reproached for making profits by showing the paintings of outsiders to the public. The contrast between such a state of things and that which now exists is extraordinary; it is greater and probably more permanent than the difference between the present fashions in dress and those of our ancestors who dyed themselves with woad; for it is quite certain that thousands of painters will be anxious to exhibit their works next spring on the walls of the Royal Academy, while no one can venture to affirm that art-ladies may not soon cast off their jerseys and stain their bodies with 'peacock-blue.'

The very useful little book, the title of which is quoted below, affords admirable materials for considering the struggle for existence awaiting every picture which comes into the world; and to those who can appreciate the study, the hopes, the disappointments, the praises, and the discouragements which every picture, however bad, has brought upon its author, a canvas is almost as remarkable a bundle of possibilities' as a baby.

In our remarks upon the fate of these bantlings we shall make distinction between the offspring of artists and amateurs. Works of art should stand upon their own merits, and the sources from which their authors pay their weekly bills afford no means of classifying such productions or estimating their artistic value. The broad distinction between the artist and the amateur is this, that the former lives, or desires to live, by the sale of his works, and that the latter is more or less independent of such a source of income. The artist may produce daubs which no one cares to buy, while the amateur may paint pictures which would command large prices if he were willing to sell them. As a rule most artists are better technically educated, can give more time to their art, and are therefore better painters than most amateurs, but many of them are artists from circumstances rather than from natural talent, and it is quite certain that some amateurs are in every respect superior to some artists.

It is, unfortunately, rather the fashion for artists to speak slight

The Year's Art. By Marcus B. Huish, LL.B. (Macmillan & Co., 1880.)

ingly of amateurs; but as the judgment passed upon a work of art should be wholly independent of its author's name and position, and as the works of the best artists are always very superior to those of the best amateurs, we are inclined to ascribe all sneers at amateurs as a class to the natural modesty of inferior professionals.

Now when a man has painted a picture he naturally wishes it to be seen, either that it may be appreciated, if he is an amateur, or that it may be bought, if he is a professional artist. It is, therefore, necessary for every painter that he should have the opportunity of showing his works to the public; and the object of this paper is mainly to show how far the existing means of exhibiting answer their purpose, and how they might be extended or improved.

The Royal Academy demands our first and chief consideration in this matter, not only on account of its position and pretensions, but also from the fictitious value popularly ascribed to the judgment it is supposed to pass upon pictures.

During the London season, the Royal Academy is generally exposed to much abuse. It is reviled as an ill-selected, self-elected body, with a knighted president and vague privileges, whose duty it is to exhibit every decent picture that is sent to its rooms, but which neglects its duty and abuses its privileges by hanging only the miserable daubs of its members, and of those painters who have condescended to truckle for their favour. Baldly stated as this is, we may appear to have exaggerated the charge against the Royal Academy, but we will venture to affirm that it is no more than a fair summary of the things that are said about it from the time when the pictures are sent in till the close of the exhibition.

The main grievance urged against the Royal Academy is that it assumes to judge of the merits of pictures, and judges them very badly. This is an unfortunately common delusion on the part of the public, and is especially hurtful to the very persons in whose defence it is brought forward-the painters of rejected' pictures. Its falseness is well known in artistic circles, but the public in general do undoubtedly believe that the exhibition of a picture on the walls of the Royal Academy is a proof of its merit, and it is common to see in sale catalogues that the fact of its having been so exhibited is mentioned in order to enhance its value. The natural conclusion therefore follows that a picture sent in, but not accepted, has been condemned as a work of art by the best painters in the kingdom.

Now it is quite true that the Royal Academy is a self-elected body, but it would be very unfair to say that its members are on the whole i selected: most of the best English painters belong to it; there are some very moderate performers in it, and some intolerably bad daubers, but although there are doubtless some artists still outside it who are far superior to some who have been admitted, it is probable that no other process of selection would have secured a

better Academy of painters, or would have given greater satisfaction to the public. Plenty of objections can easily be imagined against every conceivable mode of selection, from nomination by the Crown down to drawing by lot; and although the painters selected might not be the same, the result of any system would be very similar. There are good, bad, and indifferent men in both Houses of Parliament, and in every branch of the Government service. So that, in spite of competitive examinations, we must own with resignation, that the infallible method of selection has yet to be discovered.

The Royal Academicians and Associates, besides putting highly prized initials after their names, have the privilege of exhibiting eight pictures apiece in the halls of the Academy. As there are forty R.A.'s and thirty A.R.A.'s, they have the right of hanging up 560 pictures, and they are fully entitled to avail themselves of this privilege. In practice, however, either from modesty or other causes, they rarely do exhibit their full number of pictures. Last year, for instance, the members of the Royal Academy have only hung about 170 of their own works-not three apiece-and only two of them have contributed as many as seven, if we except Mr. Prinsep, whose one picture should count for thirty. There are, moreover, instances on record in which members have withdrawn some of their own pictures to make room for the productions of outsiders. It is, therefore, most unfair to represent the Royal Academy as a selfish body of painters who take advantage of their privileges to show off their own works, and to suppress those of their more meritorious rivals.

When the Royal Academy was founded there was certainly no expectation that its members would avail themselves too freely of their right to exhibit, for in Rule 17 of the Instrument,' the name given to the original code of the Institution, it is laid down that 'all Academicians, till they have attained the age of sixty, shall be obliged to exhibit at least one performance, under a penalty of 5l. to be paid into the Treasury of the Academy, unless they can show sufficient cause for their omission; but after that age they shall be exempt from all duty.'

The same rule prescribes that there shall be an annual exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and designs, which shall be open to all artists of distinguished merit.' Now putting the average number of pictures contributed by Academicians and Associates at 200, there space each year for about 1,300 works of other painters. We give these figures as being tolerably near the mark; the precise numbers must of course depend upon the sizes of the pictures accepted. For these 1,300 places, between 6,000 and 7,000 works are sent in not only by artists of distinguished merit,' but by anybody who thinks fit to contribute his paintings. The necessary consequence is that the Royal Academy has to reject from 4,000 to 6,000 works, and the Council, according to the evidence given before the Royal Com

mission in 1863, takes great pains in making what it believes to be a conscientious selection. Here is the great error which causes so much injustice and discontent. Were the Council composed of the best judges of pictorial art in its widest sense, and had it the task of picking out the 1,300 best pictures in all styles from 7,000 so arranged that all could be seen together, it would be sure to make some mistakes. But painters are notoriously bad critics. They have either the strong sympathies and antipathies peculiar to the artistic temperament, or, if mere mechanical workmen, have no tolerance for methods which they do not follow or admire.

6

A test of the capability of the Royal Academy Council for selecting works of art is given by the purchases made by them under the Chantrey bequest. The task is a comparatively easy one. They have only to buy Works of Fine Art of the highest merit in Painting or Sculpture,' executed within the shores of Great Britain' 'by a deceased or living artist,' and they are not even bound to spend the whole or any part of the sum at their disposal in every or any one year.' During the last two years the selection made under these terms has met with general approval, but an inspection of the Chantrey bequest collection at the South Kensington Museum can only fill the visitor with amazement, and lead the most charitable critic to imagine that the Council had almost too conscientiously administered a benevolent fund for the purchase of unsaleable pictures.

The Council moreover cannot be expected to be impartial judges. In a competition for a prize-essay or poem the names of the writers are studiously concealed from the examiners until the prize has been adjudged, and in most cases it is probable that the examiners do not know anything of the competitors; but painters are gregarious, they know a great deal about each other's works, and although it is said that the names of the would-be exhibitors are never given until the fate of their pictures has been decided, the authorship of most of the works sent in must be known at a glance to every member of the Council; and under these circumstances no system of selection except drawing lots could possibly be impartial. We do not believe that a Council of Recording Angels would, under the circumstances, be quite free from favouritism.

What, then, is the ordeal to which 6,000 or 7,000 pictures are yearly subjected? They are trotted rapidly past a number of very prejudiced judges, who are bound to reject about 5,000 out of the whole lot.

And this is what the British public is pleased to call the verdict of the Royal Academy upon the pictures contributed.

It is grossly unfair upon the members of the Council, and still more unfair upon the Academicians who did not belong to it, to lay to their charge all the blunders which must inevitably result from