Dudley Gallery, second notice

The Dudley Gallery, second notice.

Rossetti, William M. "The Dudley Gallery." Academy (November 6, 1875): 183. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

The exhibition is not very interesting, according to Rossetti, so he states that he intends to merely discuss a few figure-pictures as they stand on the walls. Among the works and artists he discusses, he admonishes R. Macbeth as "a painter who could come right, if he chooses," in his painting technique. He also criticizes frequent exhibiter and PRB-aligned artist Charles Leslie for showing a poor, unmeaning, flimsy affair that, according to Rossetti, Charles Leslie must recognize but "possibly customers" would not. Rossetti faults Leslie, saying he has "much mistaken his vocation, and is frittering away his gifts . . . his paintings of this category are all, more or less, poor, unmeaning, flimsy affairs: the present one is mere vacuity in purpose and performance. This is a recurring Rossetti issue: art whose purpose is first to satisfy the fashionable criteria of an uninformed market at the expense of meaningful, true art.

Among landscape exhibitors, Rossetti notes Moore, Hemy and Goodwin as painters who know how to "put into their productions such a weight of perception and impression" to create authentic, powerful work. Rossetti praises the work of the Alma-Tademas, two members of his Cheyne Walk circle of associates are mentioned, then Rossetti turns to animal-subjects with only brief mention of several works in passing, plus a mention of exceptional flower painting.