Royal Academy, second notice

Royal Academy Exhibition May 1878 (second notice).

Rossetti, William M. "The Royal Academy Exhibition." Academy (May 25, 1878): 316. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

Rossetti finds some uncommonly favorable words and appraisals regarding some works in this exhibition, although the favorable remarks pertain mostly to painters with whom he shares similar artistic views and whose names recur in Rossetti's critical work: Charles Leslie, Hughes, Hubert von Herkomer, John Pettie, William Powell, Walker and Rossetti's Cheyne Walk associate, Alma-Tadema (Reminiscences 2:323).

This "Second Notice" covers "Domestic and Miscellaneous Figure Subjects" and Rossetti states that there is not enough space in this essay to deal with such as large volume of works, so he selects eleven artists for his most detailed remarks, then mentions as many others as possible without critique.

critical

quality, comparison, aesthetic accomplishment

aesthetic authenticity, poetic expression, vividness, color, execution

Messrs. Leslie, Orchardson, Goodall, Hughes, Hubert von Herkomer, John Pettie, Long, Alma-Tadema, William Powell Frith, Walker, Holl

evaluative

catalogue-like, journalistic, critical

"Mr. Pettie has adhered to the trying rule, 'Be bold, be bold;' nor do we think he has in this instance laid himself open to the censure implied in the final caveat, "be not too bold;" "A prosaic but natural and straightforward invention of incident and ensemble; nothing farfetched, nothing terrific, nothing aristocratic . . . a story that reads like a book, and from which one derives the trite self-consistent moral of a narrative for the schoolroom."