ABSTRACT

257 The eighty-fifth year !—a decidcd improvement on the eighty-fourth. But improvement in an exhibition does not necessarily imply an advance in art ; and it in essential to mark the delicate distinction in this instance. The collection, as a whole, in more level, more agreeable, has fewer repetitions and imitations, and in less chargeable with utterly discreditable failures than the exhibition of last year. Voilà tout. To speak conventionally, there are no ‘striking features”in it, no ‘great.’ pictures ; vre have had better exhibitions ‘when George HI. was king’—and worse. In this age, liowever, knowing the tendency that exists to experimentalize in wrong directions, and the fatal facility displayed on all sides in the venerable .art of sinking, we naturally enough congratulate ourselves on a respectable mediocrity, in which no very glaring offences against good taste xan be detected, and think we have .achieved a success if we escape ridicule and contempt.