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The Royal Academy.
The one hundred and seventy first exhibition of the Royal
Academy has just been opened at Burlington House in London, and
the perennial squabbles about its merits and demerits still occupy many columns of the press. It is generally admitted that the
Academy is not truly representative of modern British art, and the
attitude of the Committee appears to be that there is no reason why
it should be. In fairness to this point of view it should be
pointed out that the Royal Academy yearly exhibitions were origin-
ally arranged as a convenient opportunity for the Academicians them-
selves to show what they had achieved in the field of art during
the year.
The absence at the present show of works of England's four greatest artists, Augustus John, Richard Sickert, Stanley Spencer
and Jacob Epstein, has deprived the exhibition of that measure of
exoitement which is a welcome feature of all art shows, but on the
other hand the general level of craftsmanship is perhaps higher than ever before, and certainly higher than that of similar ex-
hibitions in any other uropean country. The Academy has its own
conservative tradition, jealously guarded by academicians of whom at any rate thirteen are over seventy years of age; but within that
tradition the quality of the exhibits is sureme.
As usual, "formal" ortraits are conspicuous, among them being
portraits of members of the Royal Family and of prominent person-
alities. Landscapes naturally preponderate among the paintings, while in the sculpture section Benno Elkan's delightful bronze,
"The Great Biblical Candelabrun", with its exquisite groups of
figures, is executed with the punctilio but also with the joy of the
great craftsmen of the middle ages.