The Catapult, Painted by E. J. Poynter, R.A.details

Strenuously determined on perfecting his own talent, [Poynter] chose his next subject simply with a view to the further opportunity which it would afford for testing and developing his powers. He set himself to the painting of “The Catapult” (1868; engraved for this article) with the same unflinching resolution to meet every difficulty of conception or execution full-front which he had shown from the first.

The story told by this work—which procured the painter’s election as Associate of the Royal Academy—was not, however, likely to arouse much interest in the general public. The fall of Carthage before the brutal energies of Rome was no word of import to English homes, and the suggestions of Mr. Poynter’s subject could not carry far with a popular audience; but it proved—and this was why he chose it—a fresh test of his powers.

The slaves of Pharaoh appeared in myriad masses cast in strong relief upon their own blue shadows chequered by the glaring sun; the soldiery of Rome were revealed within the giant womb of the monster engine big with the fate of Carthage, their swarthy flesh glowing from out its protecting shades.

The complicated details of the vast machine itself were put on canvas with extraordinary precision, and the problems involved in the working out of its construction had evidently been the subject of deliberate calculation. Every groaning pulley and straining rope, every beam and every weight, was adjusted inaccord ance with the strictest requirements of the engineering science of the past; and it was again made clear that the artist had in him, not only the stuff of an archæologist, but much of that peculiar mental fibre which lends itself with pleasure to the treatment of mechanical problems—the fibre which has shown itself conspicuously more than once in the history of art, and that in some of her very greatest men.

The putting into motion of this old-world battery, with its strangely tormented system of shafts and windlass, needs must give ocсаsion to the fullest variety of action among those employed upon it; and so we had groups of the strong servants of Rome, stripped to the sun and wind, toiling with an energy which brought up their starting muscles and their splendid thews till the flesh rippled before our eyes like swelling waves beneath the breeze ,only with something of a far nobler beauty of playing and changeful line.

To the left, in strong contrast were the harnessed and helmeted archers crouching within the shadows cast by the massive supports of the shed which protected the catapult, and laying shaft to bow in defence of those who worked.

The figures of this second group—like those of one or two of the subordinate actors to the right—seemed to show some slackening of the nervous force with which Mr. Poynter had characterised the central personages of his design; and it was remarked by critics that many of the figures were in attitudes of action rather than in action, although less obviously so than was the case in some of his previous works.

Now the power of “drawing movement” would seem, except in very rare instances, to be in some measure denied to men whose main preoccupation is that of attaining high perfection and correctness in draughtsmanship. For to give the impression of rapid movement, exaggerations always seem to be necessary which are repellent to a steady judgment. Dashes of brilliant suggestion will often render higher service than the most accurate lines of definition, and the very effort to be perfectly accurate will sometimes defeat its own end. M.r Poynter, dwelling always with great stress of intention on the forms which he seeks to, render does sometimes come short perhaps of producing exactly that impression which he had intended to convey. (p. 248)

Mr. E. J. Poynters “The Catapult” reproduced by us last month, is the property of Sir Joseph Whiwell Pease, M.M., by whose permission it was engraved.