French Gallery

Continental artists exhibiting at the French Gallery.

Rossetti, William M. "The French Gallery." Academy (April 10, 1875): 153 Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

This review is typical of Rossetti's consideration of non-Academy exhibitions in general, and foreign art schools in particular, with more positive appraisal and exemplary endorsement.

Rossetti's review groups painters and subjects by nationality, then discusses certain works in terms of story, intent, design and execution and effect in his typical fashion. Most of the work of other Europeans he finds favor with, particularly in their freedom from stultifying academy proscription in their nations.

Rossetti draws an explicit parallel between the continental artists, their work, and their national mandate free of academic proscription, and the ground-breaking PRB movement, stating that the paintings of this continental exhibition "might be pitted, for resolute, undaunted precision, against the most determined examples of the English pre-Raphaelites, dating more than twenty years ago."