Whilst a careful study of Cox’s life and pictures, of his earnest and loving methods of work, and of the glorious harvest therefrom resulting, has had a highly beneficial effect on the world of Art, there is no doubt that from the sudden rise in value of his pictures, and the consequent magnifying of any scrap of paper his hand had touched, as well as from the fact that the work of his latest and broadest style was most accessible, a certain servile imitation of his mannerisms, supplanted the earnest and loving study of nature, which characterised Cox to the end. These mannerisms, which by long study he had earned the right to use, and which in his work were always full of meaning, too often became in the productions of his imitators meaningless and pretentious. Time, however, is curing this evil; and the good alone will remain. As an example of the enormous increase in the monetary value of his pictures, it may be stated that “Lancaster sands,” for which Cox received £10, was sold at the Gillott sale for 3,000 guineas.
GEORGE MASON.--The work of George Mason, A.R.A. (born 1818; died 1872), marks a further development of English Art. He, like Frederick Walker, opened up still deeper poetic sympathies for us. During the varied phases of humanity, its toil and its rest, were no longer treated as mere accessories to the landscape, but as a large and essential part of it; not inserted to give a point, or story, or bit of colour to the picture, but intended from the beginning to essentially form a part of its growth as a work of art. And even when there is no human incident poetically treated, as in his “Evening Hymn,” or “Harvest Moon,” there is something in his schemes of colour or other treatment of his landscape which occurs to awaken a human interest never reached even by Cox or Turner. This school has had the strongest and widest influence on the English Art of to-day. It is greatly to be regretted that the Birmingham Art Gallery contains no examples of the works of George Mason.
E. BURNE JONES.--The third phase is that represented by Mr. E. Burne Jones and Mr. Watts. This being the most recent development, its force cannot yet be measured; but there is little doubt that it will be the greatest of the three. For six months after the opening of the gallery, one end of the large room aforesaid was filled with a magnificent collection of the works of Mr. Burne Jones; and at a recent exhibition of the Birmingham Society of Artists, was shewn his noblest work, “The Six Days of Creation.”