Page:Scottishartrevie01unse.djvu/152

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122
THE SCOTTISH ART REVIEW


burgh man of abovit the same period as Sir John Steell, who was wise enough to leave the more cold and unsympathetic northern atmosphere of his early day for that of London, and what light and leading it could afibrd in the presence of the Elgin Marbles. His work is sound and good, and equal to the best of his English contemporaries a generation ago, but in he light of to-day it appears scholastic and formal. George Lawson is another Scotch sculptor who received his early training in Edinburgh, but who with national shrewdness speedily perceived that Scotland and sculpture were incompatible, and migrated to the sunny south. Mr. Lawson's work is not quite of the time, although merging into it. He is largely represented in the Gallery, but we have not that sympatliy with his classical efforts which we feel for his earlier romantic studies, where there is an expression of something almost unique, of which we are reminded by his Domime Sampson here. Mr. Lavvson's genius is more in the lyric than the epic vein. Johx Mossmax, another veteran, although long resident in the west of Scot- land, is also originally from Edinburgh. He is represented in the Gallery by a figure entitled Moses on Pisgah, and a marble group called The Flood, works of ordinary merit, singularly lacking in character and artistic perception. There is shown a loving study in marble of an infant's head by the late Thojias Stuart Burxett, also a character study of an old Florentine Priest. These works show considerable technical ability, and an earnest desire to search the form's qualities, which would have enabled this young artist to do good work had he been spared. D. W. Stevenson's Pompeian Mother is fairly well conceived, but rather feebly modelled. John Rhind sends a life-size study from the nude, which in parts shows some able modelling, but as a whole the figure is over- strained in the direction of decorative curves, with which the naturalistic details are quite at variance. The liead is evidently from memory, and as much out of character with the rest of the work as the title. Besides those named, a few young men exhibit works of merit and promise, showing signs of the new methods and better training current at foreign centres. They are touched by the spirit of the latest renaissance which is in the air, and tell, like faint ripples, something of the forces at work in the great waters. At present their efforts call for no special mention, being secondary, and as echoes.

DoRYPHOEUS.

GLASGOW CATHEDRAL.

ABOUT forty years ago, wlien the Cathedral of Glasgow had been swept and garnished under the direction of the late Mr. Blore, descriptive placards were fixed up in various places for the instruction of visitors. These were, in almost every particular, inaccurate. This has been often pointed out, and it has once more been brought prominently into notice through the recent proceedings of the British Archaeological Association. The papers read before that body on the Cathedral and on the history of the See, with relative discussions, clearly demonstrate how false and misleading these placards are, but still no step is taken towards their removal or correction. It may indeed be said that there never was the slightest excuse for their stupid inaccuracy, which is at once manifest to any one with even a smattering of architectural knowledge ; but there they still remain, deceiving thousands, and bearing perennial witness to the culpable negligence of the Government Department, to whose care it has been thought proper to intrust the national monuments of the country. We charitably assume carelessness to be the excuse; it is hard to believe that the perpetuation of so senseless a deception is deliberate. One of the cards has apparently dropped off and been lost. It was on one of the piers of the nave, and intimated that the nave was erected by Bishop Achaius in 1136! Those in the crypt and choir still announce to the astonished beholder that these late thirteenth-century buildings were erected by Jocelin, in 1176! There are other errors in these descriptive cards more excusable, but equally requiring correction. Many eminent ecclesiologists recently with us concur in the opinion that the chapter-house was the apartment on the ground-floor of the building, at the north-east corner of the choir, and that the apartment over it was the vestry. It seems also to be unquestionable that what has hitherto been ticketed as the Lady Chapel ought not so to be named. Strictly speaking the arrangement consists of an ambulatory with side chapels along the east side of it; one of which may or may not have been dedicated to the Virgin. It is the square equivalent of the polygonal French chevet, and is quite an unusual arrangement in British Cathedrals. We have something like it at Durham, but there the