ABSTRACT
3 The annual recurrence of the Royal Academy Exhibition is ever an occasion full of expectation. A collection of nearly 1,350 works in the various branches of Painting and Sculpture, comprehending high excellence in most departments, bears evidence of a condition of Art which we verily believe can be matched by no other modern Exhibition in Europe.—Consentaneously with the gradually strengthening health of the school, it may be worth while to remark on the change which is taking place in the population of the world of Art-patrons. The ground of Art patronage—not long since a narrow and an almost exclusive domain is year by year expanding and admitting a fresh class of occupants. They who, on the ground of position, assumed formerly to be authorities and influences in the matter of Art, are no longer the most forward to afford that real assistance without which the mere loan of a name to an association for the maintenance of a picture gallery, or to the superintendence of the decorations of a national palace, is little better than a dead letter. It is a striking enough feature of the times, that to the class which in some of the best ages of Art contributed the impulse and the means on which it fed, we are again returning for the real nourishment of the eternal cause. The wealthy merchant, manufacturer, and trader are now the artist’s most constant and liberal patrons. The walls of the present Exhibition abound in the proofs of this fact; and many a private dwelling in our manufacturing districts of the-North furnishes the means of renewing our acquaintance with works which were leading attractions of well-remembered Exhibitions gone by.
