"HOOK, JAMES CLARKE, A.ILA. From choice of subjects or manner of treatment, it often happens that painters, highly esteemed by their brotherartists, and well known to the admirers and students of art, are slow to catch the popular oye : so it has been with Mr. hook. While his picture, year after year have shown great and steadily-incronsing artistic knowledge, and a highly cultivated mind, and though they have secured high professional recognition, they have failed to wiu for the painter hitherto much notice beyond art circles.. liis earlier pictures, besides portraits, were chiefly of Italian subjects ; admirably painted, and showing a range of reading beyond that timid among English artists, as well ns much observation, but having little general interest. Of these, among the more important were—' Pam philus relating his Story,' exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1844 ; Othe IV. of Florence and the Maid Gatildredn,' 1848 ; Bianca Cnpello,' 1849; 'A Dream of Venice,' and I Escape of Fraucesco do Carrara,' 1850; 'Rescue of the Brides of Venice,' 1851; and the `Return of Torello,' 1852. In these pictures the influence of the painter's admiration of Sir Charles. Eastlake, on whose style that of Hook was evidently formed, was especially manifest; but it was scarcely leas evident in his Shsksperian and historical works, such as 'Othello's First Suspicion,' 1849; The Defeat of Shylock,' 1851 ; Othello's Description of Doademoua,' 1852 ; and The Chevalier Bayard wounded at Brescia,' 1849, one of Book's best historical works, and that which secured him his election into the Royal Academy.
Some of his later works of this order, as 'The rime of the Persecution of the Christian Reformers in Paris' (1859), have shown a more self reliant style; while his latest scriptural piece, 'Oratitude of the Mother of Moses for the Safety of her Child' (1855), is a thoroughly admirable work, oriental in diameter, original as well as chaste in style, and reverential in feeling. In 1854 Mr. Hook struck into a new path. Ile had been studying English country life and scenery, and, as the result, he sent to the Academy exhibition some pictures in which flguree of n moderato size were very happily introduced in combination with pastoral and sereside landscapes, so that each helped the other (as iu Collins's better works) to tell the etory. This vein be has pursued ; and, judging from the specimens which he sent to the exhibition of 1856, there can be little doubt that it will be in every sense a profitable one. Among his productions in this line may be named, 'The Market Morning, and 'The Shepherd Boy,' 1855; 'The Bram bles in the Way," A Passing Cloud, Welcome Bonny Lass,' and The Fishermen's Good Night,' 1856. Though of a homely class, they exhibit all the careful painting, harmonious colouring, and refined taste of his morn pretentious works, and they are thoroughly English in character. Mr. Hook was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1850.