WILSON. CICERO AT HIS VILLA. THE title to this beautiful picture may be objected to as somewhat vague, when it is remembered that the Roman orator, participating in the ostentations luxury of the age, was owner of no less than eight villas. The elegant composition before us is designed to recall the chief features of his patrimonial estate, a few miles from Arpinum, a city of the Samnites, now part of the kingdom of Naples. Middleton relates that this mansion was placed on a gentle declivity, surrounded by majestic groves, and on the banks of a stream which united its waters by a pleasing cascade to those of the river Liris. The classical recollections and intuitive taste of Wilson irresistibly led him to visit this spot, during his tour to Naples in company with the earl of Dartmouth, one of the very few Englishmen at that time sufficiently conversant with the arts, or possessing discernment enough to appreciate the transcendant abilities of the painter; and the picture before us was the result. The composition is grand and simple, while the colouring the light and shade, the figures, and general handling fully sustain the high reputation of its painter. It has been finely engraved by Woollett. WILSON. CICERON A SA CAMPAGNE. Si l'on se rappelle que, voulant suivre le luxe de son siècle, l'orateur romain n'avait pas moins de huit campagnes, peutêtre pourra-t-on critiquer le titre de ce tableau. L'élégante composition que nous donnons ici retrace à l'imagination les particularités d'un bien patrimonial que Cicéron avait à quelques milles d'Arpinum, ville des Samnites, mais formant aujourd'hui partie du royaume de Naples. Middleton raconte que cette demeure se trouvait sur le doux penchant d'une colline, entourée de bois majestueux, et qu'elle était aussi sur le bord d'une petite rivière qui, après une chute agréable à la vue, se réunissait aux eaux du Liris. Les souvenirs classiques et le goût naturel de Wilson l'engagèrent à visiter cet endroit pen dant son séjour à Naples. Il fut accompagné du comte de Dart. mouth. Ce seigneur était de ce petit nombre d'Anglais alors assez versés dans les arts, ou assez éclairés pour apprécier le grand talent du peintre: le tableau en question fut le fruit de ce voyage. La composition est simple et majestueuse, pendant que le coloris, le clair-obscur, les personnages et tout le travail répondent parfaitement à la haute réputation de l'artiste. Cet ouvrage a été supérieurement gravé par Woollett. BANKS. ALTO RELIEVO OF SHAKSPEARE. THIS production of Banks's chisel was executed for Alderman Boydell, and adorns the front of the building in PallMall which formerly contained the Shakspeare Gallery, and now belongs to the British Institution. It represents the Bard of Avon "seated between the Dramatic Muse, and the Genius of Painting, who is pointing him out as the proper subject of her pencil"; on the tablet beneath is inscribed, "He was a man take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." The figures are well designed and graceful, the costume of the poet is neither the garb of his time nor formed on classical authority; in the drapery of the Muses the artist has aimed at lightness, but his success is somewhat equivocal. Boydell presented the finished model of this Alto Relievo to the Corporation of London, and it forms an appropriate ornament of one of the civic apartments in Guildhall. |