The Royal Academy Winter Exhibition

Abstract

THE exhibition which opened this week of works by recently deceased members of the Royal Academy affords an opportunity of comparing the pictures which have been exhibited at different dates during the past fifty years with those of the present time as shown year by year at the summer exhibitions. Even a rapid tour round the galleries shows that, so far as landscapes and Nature studies are concerned, the past can well bear comparison with the present, the number of unsatisfactory representations of Nature in the present exhibition being remarkably few. This does not prove that such pictures were not exhibited fifty years ago; it may indicate only that the Selection Committee in making choice has avoided pictures of that type. It may, on the other hand, indicate that “recently deceased members” were less addicted to post-impressionism and similar phases of art than those still living.