The Tell-Tale Heart - The Pioneer, January 1843 — reading text

along time. Itis freely and boldly handled, A few of the old pictures are good, and a and full of nature. The picture bears reference ood painting does not weary by acquaintance. to no school, and was not done by trick, but is he two pictures of Judith and Holofernes — the a successful attempt to transfer to canvass the ‘* Christ mocked ’’ of Maranari—the Winter broken and stippled effects of light, shade, and Scene by Vermeulen, and one or two others are color, which are visible in every human face. agreeable and well painted. ‘The Luxembourg The tints are clear and pure, and the blues, Gallery, copied from Rubens by Girod, is ex- reds, and yellows are felicitously dispersed, and ceedingly uninteresting, though it may be very nowhere obtrusive, and the gradations good. wonderful. ‘The original pictures, which are If we find any fault, it is that the shadows are full of free dashing execution, and touched off too glowing ; but we were so charmed by the with the careless magnificence of the princely many graces and beauties of the picture, that Rubens, are chiefly valuable as coming from his we will not pick flaws. We hope to see some  EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS AT THE ATHENEUM. 15 more sincere readings out of nature from Mr. No. 69, a portrait, by Alexander, is the best Eames. picture of his we ever saw ; but the half-length No. 5. ‘* The Angel Appearing to the ofa girl with a doll, (No. 66,) is the most shabby Shepherds ”’ is the largest canvass in the room. = of careless daubing that ever met our eyes. There were three pictures by Henry Pe- ndeed, with the exception of a Cupid, by Mr. ters Gray, (Nos. 8, 11, 25,) which possess Hubard, which we once saw in this gallery, much merit. The best of the whole, in point it is about the worst picture conceivable. Mr. both of color and drawing, is the ‘‘ Portrait in Alexander should be ashamed of it, because he the Character of Rosalia.’’ ‘The color was can paint much better, and any man should be harmoniously and agreeably arranged, and ashamed to fall so grossly below himself. though deficient in force and vigor, was sweet We have understood that it was the plan of and delicate in tone. The figures in all the the Directors to make exchanges of the pictures pictures are too small and contracted for the in the gallery for works of the old masters, heads, but full of quiet and subdued sentiment. with Mr. J. W. Brett. If we could get good A little more strength and decision of touch pictures thereby, the plan would be admirable ; would be a great improvement. but if those sent this season by Mr. Brett, are The principal charm in paintings of dead a fair sample of his future intentions, we, for game and still life, resides in the truth of color, one, exclaim against the project. We are the and in delicacy and finish in pencilling. Mr. most credulous people in the world with regard Burnham mistook his talent, when he tried his to art, and are imposed upon yearly by the pencil on this subject, (No. 9.) We commend names which picture-dealers (who are first- to him to paint some more pictures in the style cousins to horse-jockeys,) set against the vilest of his ‘** Boys Playing Props,’’ exhibited at daubings. Do we not all know that no picture- the Atheneum some seasons since. ‘The draw- dealer could, by any possible chance, have a ing of that group was excellent, and the humor bad picture in his possession? Did we not see, in a true vein. within two months past, the most wretched The ‘* Kentucky Beach Forest,’’ by Miss abortions ever palmed upon the public sold as S. Clarke, is a clear and pleasant sketch, and Leonardo da Vincis, Raffaelles, Correggios, and has the predominant characteristics of many of Salvator Rosas? In fact, every red group is Allston’s landseapes. a Rubens, every dark landscape a Salvator No. 80. ‘* The Sisters’’ is the best picture Rosa, every Madonna a Guido, and every scene we have seen from the brush of Mr. Healey. which it is impossible to see, from dirt and There is, in all that we have seen of this artist’s blackness, a Rembrandt. The Atheneum has productions, a simpering affectation and a got- owned good pictures — where are they ? up expression, which is peculiarly disagreeable. There are one or two pictures, of which we They are what might be called society pictures ; forbear to speak, for various reasons. We have portraits, with that fashionable smile which understood that one of our old favorites, ‘* The makes every true person ashamed. If Mr. Lake of the Clouds,’’ we think it was called, Healey would seek to paint faces as they are, by Doughty, and which we have missed for and not as he thinks they ought to be, he would some time, was exchanged for the curious picture | paint better. It may jump with French taste of the ‘* Angel Appearing to the Shepherds.’’ to paint simpering pictures, but the Americans We were very sorry to hearit. First, because are a very serious people, and this millinery of Doughty’s landscape was a beautiful picture, in expression does not suit their faces. his best style ; second, because we ought to be We do not wish to say anything harsh about proud of him, as an American painter ; and, the pictures by J. Greenough ; but we think lastly, because the exchange picture is the worst his friends should not have allowed him to specimen of Cole that we know. We do not like exhibit them, and most particularly the ‘‘ Rib- to see foreign artists receiving so great a portion bon Picture,’’ No. 120. His ‘* Sketch from of the public patronage, while art is begging at Nature,’’ (No. 115,) is by far the best of his home. Americans can paint, and do paint, the pictures. best pictures of the present day ; but while this ‘* The Landscape,’’ No. 79, by Mr. Allston, is acknowledged most liberally abroad, our had much of his great merit. Among the many artists cannot support themselves in their native daubs, it shone like a bright particular star, land, for want of that encouragement which is though it was by no means one of his most showered upon every foreigner who visits us. agreeable pictures. ‘The pine tree in it lives, Love of art has almost become a sentence of and one can almost hear the wind whispering expatriation. All our artists flee the country, through its leaves. Some one has pressed the so soon as they can accumulate sufficient very life out of this picture in cleaning it, and means, and, until they have taken the Italian reduced the surface of it to a porcelain polish, tour, are looked down upon as mere beginners, which very much impairs its beauty. whose knowledge and taste has not been chas- No. 77, ‘*‘ The Great Carbuncle of the White tened by the study of the old masters. Mountains,”’ is probably a misprint for Blue Much as we reverence those great names, Mountains ; for no one would ever dream of which loom in beauty above their age, and calling them white if this representation be cast a light over their century, yet we verily correct. believe, that if every picture in Italy were de-  athe ceiretines 16 THE PIONEER. stroyed, it would be like the lifting of a weight trust in their own perceptions, which lie be- from art, which now presses it to the ground. hind their works ; they only see the facts, What has been done is a great fact, what is to and their own efforts are so dwarfed by the be done is only a great theory ; and even the comparison, that in despair they yield, and fall boundless hope and lofty enthusiasm, which into that vacuum of imitation wherein no great bears the young artist to Italy, the loved vision spirit can exist. Are there no faces and forms, of his dreams, quails aghast before those great are there no lives and deaths, burials and mar- monuments of labor and genius. For centuries, riages, within our own land, and next our own with a steady perseverance, directed by a lofty doors? Shines not the sun upon America, spirit, has art built up her massive walls, and gilding and coloring its landseape with as va- now the youthful aspirant, in that happy gar- rious hues as when the masters breathed the den of the world, may sigh, like Rasselas, for atmosphere of this earth? Is nature used up? — freedom, but may never overlook those barriers is character gone ' —is virtue extinct ? — which shut from him the clear and limitless is vice rooted out? Where were the old mas- horizon of hope. The deadly hand of the past ters that taught the old masters’ Where was gripes at the throat of genius, and a brooding their Italy, but in their eyes and soul? Who nightmare palsies its efforts. Our artists go told them how to paint, and held their hands, forth with promise of great excellence, full of and guided their pencils ? Let our artists come keen perception, of ready talent, of sincere ori- home, and when they have exhausted nature ginality ; they spend a few years, and then here, then let them seek her in a foreign clime. return, without energy, without spirit, a band Let them dare to look that truth calmly in the of feeble imitators. Do we wonder at this? face, which stands ever before them, and let How should it be otherwise '— When they be- them believe that the only true lessons to be hold the consummate works of those old mas- learned from the lives of the great masters are, ters, they do not see the labor and the strug- ‘*'Trust thyself,’’ and ‘* Forget that any ever gle, the spontaneous