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Simeon |
"The Dudley Gallery. The Seventh Exhibition of Water-colour Drawings." The Art-Journal, 1 March 1871: 85.
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Mr. Simeon Solomon is never so much at home as in the Dudley Gallery, and to our mind has seldom shown himself so well as on the present occasion. Once again his genius oscillates between mediaevalism and classicism. ‘The Mystery of Faith’ (89), pertains to the religion and the ritual of the Romish Church. A priest, robed richly, elevates the Eucharist; his eye fixed as in a trance, his countenance that of an ascetic, reveal a soul steadfastly set on “the mystery of faith” — the Real Presence. The execution is worthy of the conception; the artist has achieved a triumph. Scarcely less successful in the opposite direction of the classic, is ‘The Singing of Love’ (496). The figures here brought upon the scene are, Somnus, Memoria, Morpheus, Amor, Voluptas, Libido, and Mors; each personates some distinctive phase of love, divine or carnal. The forms are typical, they signify a noble godlike race of beings, somewhat akin to the purest types on Greek vases, and sometimes reminding the spectator of Miltonic conceptions of archangels ruined.