Buckingham Palace Pavilion

(From The Morning Chronicle, 21 July, 1843. The following transcript omits extensive quotations from Anna Jameson's introduction to Decorations of the Garden-Pavilion.)

 

Her Majesty's summer-house in Buckingham Gardens was opened on Wednesday to the inspection of a few persons. The site is on the high mound, which, with its leafy trees and shrubs, screens Buckingham Palace from the houses of Pimlico and Grosvenor-place. Art has, in this respect, achieved wonders, and formed a complete and rural seclusion in the heart of the metropolis. With the exception of the tops of a few high houses and the triumphal arch at Hyde-park, nothing is seen, and nothing is heard, of the busy, noisy multitude around. We enter a gate at the Royal Mews, pass through a court-yard, ascend a hill, and find ourselves at once in a sylvan solitude. Here, on a point commanding a view of the Palace and the gardens, stands her Majesty's pavilion. It is thus described by Mrs. Jameson [....]

 

We much doubt whether the object proposed of testing the feasibility of applying fresco painting to the ornament of our buildings has been completely attained. The Pavilion is too small for the purpose. Fresco cannot be worked up like a miniature. It requires height, breadth, and distance. Some of the specimens, particularly Stanfield's, whose previous studies have qualified him to overcome many difficulties, are successful. He has preserved the perspective of his landscape. The few figures in Dyce's work also stand well out, and are separated from his back ground. But whether it be that the colours are not yet dried into the shade the artists expect them to assume, or whether it be that they have failed, there is in general such a defect of distance, that we never for a moment forget that we are looking on a flat surface. In some of them the sky appears like a tent close over the figures; and the stars, instead of appearing to shine on you from an immeasurable distance, seem rather like little flaws in the wall. You imagine that it has been knocked off in places, and has yet to be repaired. As works of art we prefer the illustrations of Walter Scott, in the lesser room, to the illustrations of Comus in the principal apartment. It may be that we understand the modern author better; but in most of the illustrations of Comus there is a multiplicity of persons and objects which seem not well adapted to the broad, massive, distinct character of fresco painting. We would except Mr. Eastlake's work from this remark. It is simple enough, but it requires to be seen from some spot beyond the bounds of the Pavilion to lose sight of its faults.

 

Apart from the object of testing the application of fresco painting to our buildings, the embellishments of the Pavilion are chaste and beautiful. The minute description we have borrowed from the designer's own work makes any additional remarks superfluous. Her Majesty has now, we presume, the most splendid summer-house in Europe.