J. Atwood Slater

“ The populace, I may remark, are too excited; such sustained, extravagant attitudes, whether in a picture of large or small scale, but particularly in the former, are upon canvas rarely satisfactory; they mock with littleness at a Providence that made Art, and become puppets in the hands of artists. ”

“ The tides that rise and flow against the base of the mount are more insidious and taxing to strike against than those which encircle the Mount of St. Michael, in Cornwall; but then the quality of the sea must be more pure and far more buoyant off the Cornish coast, and freshens to a greater extent the elastic movements of the swimmer. The sea, speaking from experience, does not harass one, swimming in the bay of St. Michael, Normandy, until the "retirage" is met; when all the force that can be exerted is necessarily called forth to prevent being seaward swept. ”

“ It should be understood that as spiritual Art of its own property and nature is beset, environed on all impinging sides with a multifold range, a series of difficult corners around which the sense cannot immediately travel, but would for the fructification or sustentation's sake of its etherealism, a process of counter argument may deduce this aphorism, that in works of art in which the eye travels quickly round all the corners of thought, motive, and expression, the priceless, highest crown of spirituality cannot be awarded to it. ”

“ Linear perspective there is, and employed to much scenic advantage; but aerial perspective, utilised towards expressing overlapping figures, there is not, save in meagre degree. The canvas is too crowded, the sense of vision and admiration is nowhere at all lulled by repose. We may point to successful juxtaposition of individual figures, to masses of harmonious tones, but not to masterly composition. The mind of the artist is intent upon the bitterness of turmoil ”

“ Let it be observed that the basket capital of the arch is out of perspective; a like error is to be observed in the roof of certain of the houses on the left; the blue of the distance, although luminous and atmospheric, is too opaque. The arches forming the left-hand middle distance are finely depicted; correct as far as local traditional art will inform us, and of considerable value in such a work as ballast, substance, in steadying the erratic fancies or emotions of the painter. Criticism must justly deal with the figures of the Jewish rabble. ”

“ Again, on Tuesday, at ten minutes to two, the swimmer, to confirm his past exploits and as a climax to his stay in Mount's Bay, swam from Venton cove to St. Michael's Mount, rather in excess of a mile, in thirty-one minutes, Ivey, his boatman merely steering his boat alongside.
It is the swimmer's opinion, that the timing of mid, or half stroke, is the most elegant, most difficult, and to conceal, yet fully make use of this "break," constitutes the criterion as to whether the swimmer, be he amateur or professional, is first-class or not. ”

“ In all that assists most to mature a native work of this immense importance it is sound sense, equivalent to the gravest optimism, to express this opinion, that the highest powers of science ought humbly, intelligently to co-operate towards achieving a grand and triumphant finale, perfect, harmonious in all its parts, and responsible to the academic dictates of its sacred title. ”

“ But, conjecturally speaking, in a world wherein all things are so public, it must be conceded that strong light should at stated times fuse the impinging points of understanding, that truth and common sense may scrutinise their sound bearings ”

“ The painter, honestly striving with his subject, and on lines of intimate understanding, has none of his physical reasons thrown into shade, either be it for the nobility of his art, or for urgency's sake, or for the softer assuaging of sensitiveness in the breasts of his academic audience, having no inclination to be stung when in the precincts, the hands of Art ”

“ Let it be granted in the first instance that the theme is an onerous one; the problem afforded by the venture should have been met in a manner skilful in art, commensurate with its righteous obligations and its lofty demands by the artist. ”

“ The fact is, that they pose for something; generally their own animal idiosyncrasy, if not respectable vanity. Stevens's figures, on the contrary, always for their own decency, which throws into the core, the heart of the monument such an expression of beauty, giving rise to the word innate, quenching the sense of frivolity, which unrestrained, disordered state of things oozes out somewhere, or is at any rate felt "in the air" in Michael Angelo's works. ”

“ Sir,—Touched by a virtuous sense that a noble writer has passed from the central and celestial sphere of his vocation, and discharging the offices of respect voluntarily admitted as a literary admirer, with sympathy in a bruised state of liquefaction, I maintain that the season for uttering a few words is clearly at hand, and should be turned to the advantage of retrospect. ”

“ To further substantiate and enhance my devoutly expressed remarks, I confidently state that the compilation of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" was not originally in fact the outcome of an individual movement, or yet of a moment. At periods diverse, and at stages various, it matured its conditional purpose by repeated acts of regeneration and reform, by keeping generally within the radius of a stereotyped policy of pruning and paring ”

“ Being bred of a generation which has read, with a spirit attuned to the pleasant influences of an Academic and a Saracenic art, the writings of John Henry Shorthouse, and ever discovering them to contain philosophic importance and pyschologic expression decidedly above the astuteness and ability of average writers ”

“ Be it even tacitly acknowledged, in surveying the genesis of Hymnology that the function of revision has once been, a fact, applied to the "Hymns Ancient and Modern" since the appearance of "The Hymnary," in my estimation under a less searching eye than that which all impartially discriminated and directed, at one and at one time only, the laying together and the consolidating of the "particles predelix" of this frankincense offering of the National Church; a work of classic intent and æsthetic outcome. Personal labour designed it purposely for the hearts of men, but not for their faces ”

“ The group of figures upon the raised tribune is classically adjusted to its position of prominence. The spare figure of Christ, "The Man of Sorrows," is well conceived; the face is wan, haggard, the attitude tastefully depicted. A palpable and perilous digression is made by the artist in ignoring the text of Holy Writ, "Wearing the purple robe," electing to substitute for the purpose of his science a scarlet "toga." ”

“ The crowding of the lawless throng against the front of the tribune, on which the chief characters of the scene are portrayed, though not in a material sense wrong, must be open to much æsthetic dispute; must mar the success and the action of reflex thought, the spiritual contest waging and recoiling between the Divine, meek victim and the surging rabble. ”

“ The one fine attribute conspicuously lacking in the work is its illumination, generally too yellow; the fine quality of light, naturally directing the hearts with the intelligences of the beholder to the central fact of the subject theme, "I am the Light of the World." ”

“ The breast of the thoughtful writer heaved ever to animal instincts without measure in extolling the complex phases of court, ecclesiastic, and domestic oligarchy. Statesmanship and subjunction rise and peacefully sink together, and in his magnetic touch, are made to harmoniously coalesce in the political balance. ”

“ If fictionizing in prose, he writes with brief orange-hued flashes of liquid ether; each of short, all but, brief span. Characteristically, he belongs to the same school and unapproachable law as the French organist-composer, C.M. Widor: stringent, petulant observance of free uncurbed metronome time, allied to picturesque handling; punctuality of tidal consort rigidly regarding, when each, the one to the other, linked; less a care, by virtuous intuition displaying for lyric measure. ”

“ Whilst engaged in the preliminaries of the start a moment of suspense was passed, the distance appearing sufficient (when out of water) to unnerve all but the most intrepid of swimmers. Striking out in the direction of Newlyn, and using the breast stroke, the shore and beetling Mount were gradually left behind, but when a full distance of a mile and a half was covered, a swell got up from the S.W. and blew a quantity of water into the face of the swimmer. At each impulse progress becoming extremely difficult; nevertheless a yet further interval of half a mile was placed to the swimmer's credit ”

“ A dramatic and subtle sense of distance, such a powerful agent of spiritual injection in the hands of real artists is in this work absent; never skilfully employed either for negative or positive reflections of emotion. ”

“ To state my views, having received elementary drawing instructions from a friend of Stevens, I think that there is evidence, in carefully examining the figures upon the Wellington Monument and the Dorchester House chimney-piece a finer knowledge of line in Stevens's work. Michael Angelo's Medici figures, and indeed, his other famous works, are not so unequivocably good; the effigies superimposing the sarcophagi are, for brief instance, "pillowy," though they may be more anatomic. The suavity of nature's hypo-refined grace is not traceable in their easy posture. ”

“ Stoical people do not know the wealth of chaste language stored up within the covers of "The Hymnary." A rare musician-poet is needed to resolve its pulpy flavour and discipline to the polemics of common life; whilst one, a connoisseur, would readily congratulate the sanguine, sensible, and all-seeing management, as regards to authors of words, indices of composers, indices of metres, metronome marks, which heralds and places it, in respect of completeness, ahead of all contemporaneous editions.
J. ATWOOD.SLATER, Medallist & Premium Holder of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. ”

“ The heads of not a few of the spectators are too large, coarse, and expressionless. Here and there, in the distance for instance, amongst the living panorama, there appears a figure hinting at a better type of gesture, with a human heart, suggesting an acquaintance with refinement, but the breadth of awe, the girdle of salvatory redemption, even in coarse brutality is not even here apparent. The work is a mute exposition of gesture. The higher, the acute, the really more intense connection of poetry is absent.
J. ATWOOD.SLATER 4, Hill Side, Cotham Hill, Bristol. ”

“ Berthold Tours, in the key of D, which, with no inconsiderable éclat was in the sequence of events, produced at St. Raphael's Church, Bristol, on Sunday, the 12th inst. A companion to the graceful evening service or setting of the appointed Canticles in F major, which be it observed, is the most popular, and from a purely suitable point of view, most successful of modern evening services, it marks a phase of expression, at once ethereal and predilectious. ”

“ For its incomparable, iconographical purpose it exists, and is as intrinsically useful and serviceable to the scheme as the figures which admirably illustrate the pictures of Hogarth and Holman Hunt. When introduced, music is rarely intended to edge itself into the important place of "first study." ”