Royal Academy, second notice

Part 2 WMR review of Royal Academy exhibition of May 1877.

Rossetti, William M. "The Royal Academy Exhibition." Academy (May 19, 1877): 443. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

This essay is the second part of Rossetti's analysis of the Royal exhibition of May, 1877. He ranges from art piece to art piece with mostly quantitative observations, but with occasional comments observing qualitative aspects of artist technical points and effect. Since several PRB figures exhibit successfully in this Royal Academy exhibition, there is less overall negativity in Rossetti's review, although he is vehement near the conclusion regarding the artistic "treason" that is destroying appreciation of the Japanese art of painting.

Rossetti raises a distinction between "reading a picture" rather than "recurring to it as a pleasure of sight," implying that the latter approach is the more valuable. He also notes a "theatrical picturesqueness" in John Pettie's work, and the painterlike propriety" of Sir Frederick Leighton's work. He states that Sir John Everett Millais and Sir Frederick Leighton are the "prime distinction in the Royal Academy of 1877."

The review is rich with typical WMR patterned criticism: description, theme, execution, success and relative, comparative merit in many individual works.

critic

RA exhibition, achievement, relative merit

RA standards vs. PRB enlightened standards; authenticity

evaluative, definitive

Sir Edward John Poynter, Poole, Gilbert, John Pettie, Napier, Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir John Everett Millais, Alfred Hunt, Albert Moore