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Simeon |
"General Exhibition of Water-colour Drawings. Dudley Gallery." The Art-Journal, 1 March 1872: 74-75.
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Works of an entirely different vein are those by S. Solomon, ‘One Dreaming by the Sea’ (73), ‘Evening’ (111), ‘Dawn’ (189), &c. The ideas are fanciful, and as such not always perspicuous. In the first named appears a youth seated on the sea-shore—nude and very like an academic study. We are to suppose him sleeping, but it is difficult to do so in the upright position he maintains. The third is a like impersonation, but the proposition is more definite, for the general aspect is that of morning twilight, and he is in the act of throwing off the mantle of night. It will be understood that these conceptions are rendered with a feeling more sculpturesque than pictorial, and where the argument is clear the narrative is charming. These, however, with other works to be mentioned, are not without the taint of what is known as “style,” a compromise between classic and ancient Florentine Art, in which we find that the yearning after exalted expression often leaves no expression at all. ... 'Until the Day break and the Shadows flee away’ (189), Simeon Solomon, is the text standing in the place of a title to a group of three heads, but the relation between the drawing and the text lies in the dim twilight of conjecture. If it point to the consummation of our present dispensation, the allusion is not sufficiently perspicuous.