The Pavilion at Buckingham Palace

From the London Times, 22 July, 1845.

 

A very curious and striking exhibition is now afforded by the decorations just completed in the interior of the Pavilion, erected on a mount, in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. The favour of a private admission, granted a few days ago, enables us to give a brief description of it. It is known that within the last few years the attention of artists has been directed to the combination of decorative painting with architecture after the examples of the great Italian masters of the "cinque-cento" school, whilst the introductions of fresco painting, towards the accomplishment of that end, was certainly talked of. Her Majesty and the Prince Consort resolved to try the experiment on a small scale, so as to adorn a summer-house in the gardens of the Palace, and at the same time to offer to British artists a high motive and a fair opportunity for the display, or rather trial, of their powers in the old method.

 

The "Garden Pavilion" (to speak technically) is a small Swiss-looking edifice, on the summit of an artificial eminence, overlooking the spacious lawn and piece of water in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, which is seen in the distance. The external appearance of the Pavilion is picturesque and fantastic, without any regular style of architecture. The interior consists of three rooms and a kitchen. The principal apartment is an octagon, 15 feet 8 inches by 15 feet 9 inches; and from the floor to the centre of the vaulted ceiling, 14 feet 11 inches in height. This room opens on each side into another of smaller size, 8 feet 10 inches by 9 feet 7 inches, and 12 feet in height.

 

The central room is the octagon; of the eight sides five are occupied by windows and the glazed entrance; three others by the doors opening on the two side rooms, and by the fire-place, over which is a large mirror, reflecting the whole.

 

The roof rises into a dome, sustained and divided by eight ribs; and in each compartment is a circular opening, with a sky background. A rich cornice runs round the room, and below the cornice are the eight lunettes, containing the frescos, by eight different painters. Each lunette is 6 feet by 3 feet; and over each is a tablet, on which in inscribed, in gilt letters, on a brownish-red ground, the particular passage of the poem which has suggested the subject of the painting below. The subject of these frescos in Milton's masque of Comus--a work perfectly adapted to the object in view. The artists selected to try their talent were Stanfield, Uwins, Leslie, Sir William Ross, Eastlake, Maclise, Landseer, and Etty, but the fresco of the last mentioned gentleman was subsequently removed, and one by Mr. Dyce substituted in its place. Judging from the displaced fresco, which was shown to us afterwards, we cannot wonder at the stern decree which removed such a performance from the walls of the Pavilion. We proceed to notice the eight frescos according to the order in which they are arranged around the apartment. The lines of course form the text of the painting, extracted as they are, from various passages of the masque.

I.--STANFIELD, R.A.
"Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key,
That opes the palace of Eternity.
To such my errand is."--Comus, v.12-17.

Landscape; a forest scene, through which a torrent, broken by rocks and pebbles, flows towards the foreground. The attendant spirit is seen in his shepherd guise, leaning on his crook, in a meditative anxious attitude; while, in the background, through the glade, we see the rabble rout of Comus engaged in their nocturnal revels. The spandrils represent, on the right, a cherub weeping; on the left, a fiend exulting.

II.--T. UWINS, R.A.
"This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife."--Comus, v. 200-219.

Comus and the Lady. She is standing "near a huge oak, the center of the grove," as one meditating. Comus stands half hidden by the foliage, and listening to her soliloquy. In the spandrils a Seraph looks down with anguish; and a Satyr with triumph.

III.--C. LESLIE, R.A.
"Hence with thy brew'd enchantments,
Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence
With visor'd falsehood and forgery?"--Comus, v. 696-795.

The Lady, spell-bound in the chair, repels Comus, who offers her the enchanted goblet. A Bacchante reclining and a young Satyr are in the foreground. In the spandrils, white antique masks and white flowers.

IV.--SIR WILLIAM ROSS, R.A.
"What! have you let the false enchanter 'scape!
O ye mistook; ye should have snatch'd his wand,
And bound him fast."--Comus, v. 812-816.

The two brothers, with drawn swords, drive out Comus and his crew. The attendant spirit stands in front; the Lady is seated behind. In the spandrils, a bacchante and a Diana.

V.--C. L. EASTLAKE, R.A.
"------ If virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her."--Comus, v. 1022.

Virtue, ascending to the "sphery chime," faints on the steep and rugged path. A seraph, with a countenance beaming with tenderness and pity, bends from above to encourage and to aid her. Angels on each side, holding the lily, the emblem of purity, are leaning from the clouds to welcome her; while Vice, under the semblance of a serpent, is seen gliding away. In the spandrils are two pensive cherub heads, with an expression of adoration.

VI.--DANIEL MACLISE, R.A.
"Brightest Lady, look on me;
Thus I sprinkle on my breast
Drops, that from my fountain pure
I have kept, of precious cure."--Comus, v. 910-919.

The Lady, spell-bound, not only "in stony fetters fixed, and motionless," but asleep or in a trance, is seated in the marble chair. Sabrina and her attendant nymphs are hovering round her. One nymph presents in a shell the water "from the fountain pure." Sabrina, bending over the Lady, is about to sprinkle her and to pronounce the "dissevering charm." In front stand the two brothers and the attendant spirit. In the spandrils, two of the deformed "rabble rout" look down in affright.

VII.--EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A.
"-----Their human countenance,
Th' express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog or bearded goat."--Comus, v. 68-71.

The same subject as No. IV., very differently treated. Comus, surrounded by his crew, is terrified by the approach of the brothers, who appear behind in the act of rushing upon them. A bacchante, with a beautiful female form, and the head of a hound, has thrown herself in affright upon the arm of Comus. Other monsters, half brute, half human, in various attitudes of mad revelry--grovelling, bestial insensibility--confusion and terror--are seen around him; the pathetic, the poetical, the horrible, the grotesque, all wildly, strangely mingled. In the spandrils are two heads--a grinning ape, nod a bear drinking.

VIII.--W. DYCE, A.R.A.
"Noble Lord and Lady bright,
I have brought ye new delight.
Here behold, so goodly grown,
Three fair branches of your own."--Comus, v. 968-975.

The attendant spirit, kneeling, presents the liberated Lady and her two brothers to their noble parents, who come forth from their "state" to receive their princely progeny. In the spandrils, two guardian angels present crowns of white roses and myrtle.

 

We shall not at present enter into any minute criticism of these works of art. We can only afford to be general. It may, therefore, suffice to say that hardly one of the artists has "come up" to the design of the poet. The various figures of Comus are good;--that of Mr. Leslie, we deem, the best ideal of the character. "The Lady" is made very little of--a sad burlesque, in most instances, on the high-souled, virtuous, dignified, creation of Milton. Sir William Ross makes her a young lady of "modern accomplishments"--pale and sentimental--whilst Mr. Leslie represents her as an innocent girl, hardly arrived at the age of puberty. With Mr. Eastlake she is a Madonna, and rather stupid-looking into the bargain. Perhaps, Mr. Uwins has given the best impersonation of this sublime and noble character. Mr. Maclise's design is that of a very beautiful woman, but freezingly cold and marble-like, far more so than the subject demands. Mr. Landseer's fresco is inimitable; and to our taste and judgment, superior to all the rest. He is quite chez lui, of course, in the depiction of his various "brutish forms," but there is, independently of this, a mind--a creative genius--in the piece. Their heads are truly unique, and the upright "bruin" is enough to shake one's sides with mirth.

 

Beneath the lunettes are panels adorned with arabesques, in harmony with the main subjects. Over each door are winged panthers, in stucco, with a head of Comus, ivy-crowned, between them. The ivy and the vine predominate amid the wreaths of many-coloured flowers and fruits the masks and grotesques, which adorn the panels and friezes. Beneath each window is the cipher of Her Majesty and Prince Albert, encircled with flowers. The medallions, in bas-relief, on the pilasters, contain figures and groups from a variety of Milton's poems.

 

A richly carved and gilt door opens from the central apartment into the room on the left, which has been decorated in what may be called the romantic style. The subjects are all taken from the novels and poems of Sir Walter Scott. The walls of this room, to the height of 12 feet, are painted in imitation of grey marble, with such taste and fidelity as to deceive the most practised eye. Above this wainscotting, which has a very chaste and cool effect, runs a decorated frieze, in 12 compartments, three on each side: of these, the central compartment is formed of a bas-relief, in white stucco, on a dark-blue ground; and to the right and left are festoons of flowers, richly coloured, and surrounding small landscapes, in frames, illustrative of the scenery of the novels.

 

The ceiling is coved, at the summit of which is a square opening representing sky. Small statues of children sustain the spandrils, and stand on brackets decorated with thistle, which is also introduced in the border of the pavement.

 

The room on the right of the octagon room is decorated in the Pompeian style; all the ornaments, friezes, and panels being suggested by, or accurately copied from, existing remains, except the coved ceiling, which is entirely invented by A. Aglio. It is considered a very perfect and genuine example of classical domestic decoration, such as is found in the buildings of Pompeii--a style totally distinct from that of the baths of Titus, which suggested to Raphael, and his school, the rich arabesque and ornaments in painting and in relief, which prevailed in the 16th century, and which have been chiefly followed in the other two rooms.

 

We quitted the Pavilion with mingled feelings of pleasure and agreeable surprise, rejoiced to witness so gratifying a testimony to the taste of the exalted personages by whose daily visits it will be honoured, and astonished to view the triumph (for so we may call it) which has been already achieved by our fellow-countrymen in this novel and almost untried branch of the fine arts.