صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

here produced, not by light and shade, but by clashing colors. Mr. Cooke will do well to avoid the use of such a variety of strong and brilliant tints hereafter, and he may rely upon it, that, if he will take our advice, he will speedily reap its fruits, in an increase of reputation.

57. Portrait of a Lady sleeping. C. Flagg. There is much originality and some merit in this picture. We have learned, since writing our notice of another picture by the same artist, that he is very young, and that these are his coups d'essai in the fine arts. We bid him "macte tuâ virtute puer," and wish him much success; but we are inclined to think that he will achieve it more readily by adopting a simpler and less meretricious style of coloring.

58. The Minstrel returned from the War. W. Page. This is a clever little sketch by a very promising young artist. There are some slight defects; as for instance, the kneeling figure is too rectilinear, and the blue lining of the drapery overhead is too abrupt, and almost constitutes a patch, but the picture is nevertheless clever.

59. Landscape. W. M. Oddie. This is a very clever landscape indeed. Mr. Oddie is, we believe, an amateur; he bids fair to become an excellent artist. The coast scene-No. 12-is from the same hand, a painting of no common order, but this is far superior. We could wish that the crimson jacket on one of the figures had been omitted, it glares unpleasingly upon the eye.

60. Sea Piece. J. Pringle. It is to be regretted that this picture is so hard, as it is well conceived, and would other wise deserve much praise.

61. Sailors playing at Cards. J. Thompson. The drawing of this picture is terribly faulty. Our artists do not pay nearly enough attention to this all important part of their profession. No painting, however beautiful in its details, merits the slightest praise if the drawing be false.

62. Portrait of L. Da Ponte. P. Copmann. A very clever likeness of the venerable Italian; it is among the best portraits of the exhibition.

63. Portrait of a Gentleman. J. H. Kimberly.

64. John Shepard, Esq. S. A. Mount, A. Neither of these pictures are in any respect above par.

65. Landscape. W. Bayley. This is not a very successful specimen.

66. Composition. W. B. Oddie. We suspect that there may be a false print here, and that we ought to read W. M.; still we have certain misgivings that it is not by the same hand as Nos. 12 and 59, for we look in vain in the present in

stance for the great beauty which a single glance discovered in the others.

67. Portrait of a Lady. J. Freeman, N. A. A face of singular and sweet loveliness. It is also well painted, the head particularly, the flesh well colored, and the whole very harmonious. There is something wrong in the throat, an improper projection that looks almost like a goitre; this is the more to be regretted, as it constitutes a defect in what would be otherwise a most beautiful painting.

68. Full length Portrait of a Lady. S. F. B. Morse, P. N. A. This has, a good deal, the character of a Flemish painting, with its high finish and elaborate details. It is not quite, and yet comes very near to being, an uncommonly good picture.

69. Portrait of Ex-President Madison. A. B. Durand. We have seen many heads by this clever artist, which we should prefer to that before us. Durand can do nothing without talent, but this is not one of his happiest efforts.

70. Portrait of Wm. Fuller, Esq. J. Whitehorne, N. A. Not a picture of a high order.

71. The Tyrolien Kirchweihfest, commonly called Kiermess, a feast customary among the common people of Germany. J. Petzl. If Mr. Petzl be a boy, he had better learn to draw, and at least exhibit no painting till he have learnt the rudiments; if he have arrived at maturity, we fear that he will learn that painting is not his line.

72. Portrait of a Girl and Dove. J. H. Shegog. We cannot recognize the artist of the Torn Hat in the present weak and gaudy piece.

73. West Point, from below Fort Putnam. G. Cooke, A. The remarks which were elicited from us by the view of Hell Gate, will all apply with full force to this picture likewise.

74. Portrait of a Lady. J. F. Hanks. Whatever other merits this picture may possess, they are strangely defaced by its hardness. It is singular that, out of ten portraits, scarcely one can be found that is not as stiff and hard as a wooden statue.

75. Ariel. C. Ingham, N. A. Mr. Ingham is one of our best portrait painters, but here he has very grievously disappointed us. Ariel is understood to be a portrait of a distinguished vocalist, the charms of whose person, if inferior, are only inferior to those of her own sweet voice. We looked, therefore, to have found Ariel a personification of grace and beauty, and alas! we find neither. In the features there may perhaps be some resemblance,but the elegant air with which the head of the fair original is set on, is entirely lost in the portrait. The limbs, the lower limbs in particular, are coarse,

strong, and muscular, so much so that we imagine that a male model must have been chosen from which to design. The arms are lean and angular, the right arm peculiarly so, which, as it is raised above her head, instead of exhibiting the graceful curve that has been designated as the line of beauty, is distorted into a sharp and painful angle at the elbow. There is, moreover, nothing in the least degree sprightly or aerial in any part of the figure, which is moreover colored gaudily and in bad taste; the scanty drapery, of an ochre yellow, does not float on the air in graceful folds, but is stiff and solid; the flowers of every striking hue, which are scattered in gorgeous profusion over the foreground, are very injurious to the effect of the picture, and to the unity of the subject. We lament the small justice that Mr. Ingham has done to his fair subject, and to his own reputation.

76. Turk. C. Mayr. A little gaudily dressed, squat figure, smoking his pipe under an alcove; there is not much point in the conception, or merit in the execution.

77. Mother and Child. W. S. Mount, N. A. A very pretty, though slight and rather unfinished sketch.

78. Landscape. T. Cole, N. A.

It is the hour when from the boughs

The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lover's vows

Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars have met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaves a browner hue, And in the heaven that clear obscure So softly dark, and darkly pure, Which follows the decline of day, As twilight melts beneath the moon away. BYRON.

This is decidedly the chef d'œuvre, the gem, of the exhibition. The lines which we have quoted above are a picture, the picture which is designed from them is poetry. The coolness, keeping, freshness, and nature, of the painting, are inimitable. It is not possible to look upon the picture without feeling the very sensations, which creep into our hearts as we muse beneath an evening sky, steal over us; the tender melancholy, "the glorious sympathy with suns that set," the inclination of the spirit to love and to devotion, are all called forth as we gaze upon this lovely creation of the poet's and the painter's fancy. Criticism is at fault for words-the picture almost defies both praise and censure; from the distant mountains, the glassy surface of the water, and the brown trees, to the

rich foreground, all is perfection-all except the fire light in the tower. It is true that this reflection of red light, subdued and harmonious as it is, affords a beautiful contrast to the blue moonbeam, perhaps by its warmth it even adds to the coolness of the conflicting lustre; still it is at variance with the character of the piece, we want no light to tell us of the dwellings of men; we would be alone with our fancies; and aught that tends, however slightly, to diminish the delusion, even though it increase the merits of the picture, instead of augmenting them, must be held a defect rather than a merit. We conceive this picture to be Mr. Cole's chef d'œuvre, at the least we have seen nothing that can in the least degree compare with it. Whoever shall hereafter become its owner, will possess a picture of rare, and on this side the Atlantic, unsurpassed excellence.

(To be continued.)

We

SCULPTURE.-My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman.-Ball Hughes. Academy of the Fine Arts. It was with the highest degree of admiration that we visited this noble spectacle. Hughes has ever been with us a favorite. He is unquestionably the first sculptor in America-one of the first, any where. This exquisite group is his master-piece; and, had it been his single effort in the art, would have stamped him as a worker in marble, surpassed only by a Westmacott, a Chantrey, or a Nollekins. It is a most superb effort, both of poetical creation, and of mechanical execution. have, at this moment, two distinct works of art, both of singular beauty, and both original, on the same subject. The statues, by Hughes, and an engraving, from Leslie. To the former we unhesitatingly assign the palm, as the nobler, the more beautiful, and the loftier, creation. There is, in the statues, no burlesque-nothing little or ludicrous. My Uncle Toby is a gentleman of the old school-he is the bland, urbane, and polished veteran-no less accustomed to courts than to campsand the Widow is as lovely a female form as ever breathed in marble. Her sylph-like figure is thrown somewhat backwards, while she leans towards my uncle-one arm, raised in a beautiful curve above her head, indicates the cause of her complaint-while the other has fallen, in the unguarded freedom of the moment, on the old soldier's knee. Her upturned face, with the very slightest smile of archness on her lips, is the very beau ideal of female beauty- her widow's cap, confining her luxuriant locks in partial durance-one having escaped from its restraint, wantons at pleasure down her smooth neck-being the only symp

tom which indicates the beautiful girl, for she is scarcely more, to be a widow. The exquisite moulding of her bust, the easy flow of the drapery, partially revealing the line of her lower limbs-one resting the point of a tiney foot upon the steps of the sentry box-the other, protruding in dangerous proximity to the veteran's knee, are all in the very highest manner of the art. The male figure is not less excellent-we are not sure, that the head is not superior-the broad intellectual brow-the full benevolent eyethe bland expression of every feature speak to us as plainly as the words of Sterne-revealing, at a glance, the character of the man. His body is drawn up in a fine military position, without the slightest stiffness-one arm passing behind the widow's waist, the other resting on his still muscular thigh. His head bent slightly forward, to mark the cause of his sweet companion's discomposure, not rudely thrust into her face, is perfectly dignified and classic. He is the perfect polished gentleman, who, though he may be forced into ludicrous circumstances, can never be graceless, much less, ridiculous. He now gazes steadily, and evidently with pleasurable emotions, into the upturned orbs of the widow, and we detect, in the slight smile that plays about his parted lips, that he is at once "fooled to the top of his bent," and conscious that he is so; while he finds it impossible to withdraw his eyes from the fascination of the syren at his side. So much for the conception. With regard to the execution, we can only say, that we studied the group long and attentively-that we walked round it-viewed it in every light and in every different aspect-and could discover no blemish. This is, indeed, a rare occurrence. The most brilliant pieces of modern sculpture are rarely exempt from some error against proportion-some ungraceful line, in one or other point of view; but as far as we understand the mechanism of the "human form divine," there is not a solitary failing in this admirable specimen, to detract from its high merit.

Sincerely, therefore, do we congratulate Mr. Hughes on his almost unexampled success. We dare affirm, the present group to be the finest piece of sculpture that has ever been produced in the United States--and that very few such have been called out of the shapeless block, in any country of the globe, within the latter centuries. We trust sincerely, that the success reaped by the artist will be proportionate to the talents he has displayed, and sufficient to induce him to continue an ornament to the arts of his adopted country.

National Portrait Gallery of distinguished Americans, No. XI. We have received another specimen of this meritorious publication, and have great pleasure in testifying to its excellence. The present number contains three platesAaron Ogden, painted and engraved by A. B. Durand; James Fennimore Cooper, by Jarvis and Scriven; and the Rev. Timothy Dwight, by Colonel Trumbull and E. B. Forrest. The engraving by Durand is exquisite, and evidently from a painting of equal merit. All the engravings published in this collection from the burin of Durand have been goodhave been the leading attractions which the work possessed. This, we are of opinion, is the best; superior even to the admirable portrait of Judge Marshall from a painting by Inman. One advantage Mr. Durand has probably had in the present instance over any of his former works, that the picture was painted for the express purpose of becoming a study for the burin, and by a person qualified beyond all others to decide on the peculiar properties most necessary for his purpose.

Nothing can be more delicate than the flesh, or more able than the expression. The whole, too, is in the most perfect, and at the same time, simplest, relief,-the head standing out from the deep shadowing of the back ground as though it were actually alive. The other plates are not nearly equal to this, which we are inclined to view as the master-piece of the collection. In the first place, we are not admirers of stippled engravings, and in the second we do not think either of these particularly well executed in their line. That of Dwight is remarkably stiff, and hard in the cutting. The present number, moreover, contains some very interesting facts, not, we believe, previously known, concerning the lamented death of Andrè. It seems that Mr. Ogden was despatched with a flag of truce, on some pretext or other, to the British lines; with private instructions to seek an opportunity for whispering to the British commander that Andrè would be instantly released, if Sir Henry Clinton could by any means cause the traitor Arnold to fall into the hands of his countrymen. The answer was laconically, but we think correctly, made, That a deserter was never given up, and thus the innocent man was allowed to perish miserably, while the guilty escaped uninjured. The anecdote is important, as proving that the American officers were inclined to do all in their power for the unhappy man who had fallen a victim to a mistaken sense of duty: but if we are expected to condemn the conduct of Sir Henry Clinton for not violating his faith to Arnold, traitor and

scoundrel as he was, we must at once dissent. The crime of the wretch had been committed expressly for the benefit of the British government, and he had thrown himself on British honor for protection. To have delivered him up openly, would have been contrary to the laws alike of policy, of honor, and of war; and to have expended him would have been, perhaps, a baser, because an underhand alternative. The course of Clinton was clear. Painful, it is true, but clear. He might regret, he could not preserve his friend and fellow-soldier, at the expense of his country's honor, pledged-indirectly it is true-but still pledged, to a confiding although guilty fugitive.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

New Publications. It is truly gratifying to see that in these times of pecuniary difficulty, and political excitement, the Harpers are still continuing in their useful course; diffusing information at every step, and bringing down that knowledge, which was formerly confined to sages and to statesmen, to the reach of the poorest and humblest individuals. We are in

our present number so much curtailed in the space usually allotted to the consideration of new and useful publications, by the necessity of going into a detail of the pictures exhibited at Clinton Hall, that we are obliged to defer to a future occasion very many well worthy of a present notice. On two or three of more than ordinary merit, we will at once proceed to give our fair opinion.

Life of Peter the Great. No. 55 of Harper's Family Library. Rather, perhaps, a collection of the best anecdotes, many of them new, concerning this wonderful man, than a connected history,-this is one of the most entertaining works we have ever read. Nothing, perhaps, gives us an opportunity of forming so clear an estimate of character, as these anecdotes of conduct, habit, and manners, under peculiar and widely different circumstances; and therefore we should give the preference to this little work over the more elaborate history of Voltaire. When we have said that it is ably done, we have said all that is necessary; for who can for an instant doubt but that the life of such a man as the Tzar Peter--a man among the most extraordinary the world has ever produced, must be replete with funds of information and interest? and in fact the life of Peter is such a medley of strange adventures, interesting passages, natural virtues, and incidental vices, as no romance can display. All who would wish to understand the means by which a single man "gave polish to his nation, and was himself a savage,"-how, uneducated himself, he estimated at a glance the value of education,

and made a horde of unlettered and uncivilized barbarians at once into one of the mightiest European empires, will do well to peruse this little work, and, our lives on it, they will not repent the time so well employed.

History of Arabia. Nos. 67, 68, 69, of Harper's Family Library. A good history of the interesting regions comprised under the name of Arabia has long been a desideratum; and here, we are inclined to think, the want is fully supplied. The cradle of Christianity, the yet earlier nurse of magic lore, the birth-place of Mahommed, the country of the Koran, the land which sent forth its fiery zealots to overrun a hemisphere, exterminating ancient customs and established creeds, and which yet opposes a slowly vanquished opposition to the progress of Gospel wisdom, is indeed a subject for much meditation to the sage, the scholar, the moralist, and the philosopher. We have not yet had time to give that full examination to the History of Arabia, which is of course essential to the formation of a sound

judgment. Some parts, however, we have slightly skimmed, and have seen enough to justify our saying some words of praise. The consideration of the Koran,-the Moorand the account of the singular heresy of ish conquest of the Gothic kings of Spain,the Wahabees, display so much of research, mingled with interest, and detailed in graphic writing, that we have no fear in recommending the work strongly to the attention of all our readers. It is our present intention to enter into a thorough examination of its pages, with such selections as may appear to us most calculated to amuse and to instruct, for our succeeding number.

Kay's Travels and Researches in Caffraria. New York, Harper & Brothers. We confess ourselves disappointed in this work. We are disposed to pay the utmost veneration to those men, who, devoting themselves to the propagation of religion, break through all the fetters of attachment and social love, to plunge into desert regions, amongst wild beasts and wilder men-the heralds of the living God. We could wish, however, that in detailing an account of travels and researches, they would be content to let us give the praise, without raising perpetual peans of self-gratulation. The fact is, that the book before us contains but little of travel, and still less of research; the author is evidently no proficient in those sciences which are requisite to make an intelligent traveller-such as botany, geology, mineralogy, or natural history. He is, moreover, so much prejudiced against the poor natives by the simple fact of their being heathens, that he can see nothing but this one fact. In truth, although we doubt not Mr. Kay's sincerity and good spirit, we dislike his canting manner, and above all, his perpetual straining after some singular occurrence, which he may represent as a miracle, or a judgment, or a manifest interposition. When called upon to believe in the general

[blocks in formation]

THE HISTORY OF ARABIA, ANCIENT AND MODERN. BY ANDREW CRICHTON-with a Map and Engravings, in two volumes. New York. Published by Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff street. 1834. Being Nos. 68 and 69 of the Family Library.

THERE is, undoubtedly, no region in the world possessing higher claims to be represented by a full and accurate history, than Arabia; and yet less is known of the early events, the traditions, the lore, and the achievements of a land, which has produced the most important and permanent effects on the moral and political condition of the universe, than of many a small republic, which,-how brilliant soever may have been its career of arts or arms, has nothing to offer to the keenest research, comparable, in point of magnitude or interest, to the least considerable of Arabian revolutions.

There is, indeed, no light, in which we can possibly contemplate the countries which form the Eastern boundary of the Red Sea, devoid of the most engrossing interest. Whether we look upon its rude and rocky coasts, for ages the terror of navigators; its impenetrable deserts of scorching sand, or its more favored vales of perpetual verdure, of aromatic fragrance, and perpetual spring.-Whether we consider it as the spot selected by the Most High for the promulgation of the Law, and the manifestation of his wonders in the wilderness ;—or as the source of that mighty error, which has, for so many centuries, stridden onwards pasi passu, as it were, with Christianity herself, her most formidable rival, as her most bitter and tenacious foe. Whether we look upon it as the theatre whereon the miracles of the Exodus, and the murmurings of the chosen people were exhibited to be a type for ever of the stubbornness of the human heart, and the long suffering of the Almighty; or merely as the dwelling place of a people, unchanged, and apparently unchangeable, from the earliest epochs of the world to the present day-a people existing still in the patriarchal habits of primitive simplicity; of whom the character, set down by the inspired writer, three thousand years ago, that "their hand should be against every man, and every man's hand against them," is literally true, even to the hour at which we write; Arabia is, perhaps, the most wonderful country on the face of the globe; and we rejoice to find, that, by means of this elegant and useful publication, her history will cease to be a branch of knowledge confined to the oriental scholar, the sage, and the oracular man of tongues.

[blocks in formation]
« السابقةمتابعة »