The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 16, 1868.

A GOSSIP ABOUT THE PAINTINGS, 6,c.,
IN THE PALAIS DE L'INDUSTRIE.

There is probably no other kind of sight-
seeing so fatiguing as that of visiting picture
galleries. Apart from the heat of the rooms
and the crowd of people, the eye and the mind
become wearied by the constant variety of sub-
ject and colour, and the attitude of the body is

J
trying. Indeed, few probably even of the most
determined sight-seers can look at paintings
with profit to • themselves or fairness to the
painters for more than an hour, or an hour and
a half at the longest. The French have found
the means of greatly alleviating to the lovers
of art these self-inflicted pains, by retaining
the beautiful and commodious building which
was the scene of the Great Exhibition of 1855,
for the purpose of the annual display of the
works of living artists. In its spacious and
airy galleries one can wander with great plea-
sure and ease ; and the central garden, with its
gay beds of flowers and well-arranged statuary
and numerous seats, forms a. most agreeable
change of scene and place of rest. It would
not be fair to draw any comparison between
the building and the rooms allotted to the same
purpose in our National Gallery ; for we are
reminded by the building rising in the rear of
Burlington House that a great change is at
hand. That it will be a change vastly for the
better, no one can doubt. Let us hope the new
building will be worthy of the important office
it is to fulfil. Statuary and paintings are in
their place great teachers of the people ; they
speak more or less to all minds ; they ennoble
and dignify both those who execute and those
who view them. They are wide in their influ-
ences and social attractions, and from the
archaic daubs of the ancieht churches of Abys-
sinia to the great masterpieces of the six-
teenth century, which seem to set limits to the
art of painting, all have (or should have) the
same aim and object, viz., the display of nature
and of life in its purest and best aspects ; and
especially the representation of sacred subjects,
thus raising man above the toils, the cares and
anxieties, the vain hopes and futile pleasures
of the world that passes away, to the contem-
plation of that other and better world that
awaits him. With something like these
thoughts we ascend the spacious staircase and
enter the salon, carrC or hall of honour, where
are placed the favoured paintings of the year.
It is here that royalty looks down on us from
vast canvasses in many varied phases. Let us
do homage before the " Genius loci "—the
Emperor himself, life-size, on horseback—on
eitheir side of him the Emperor of Russia and
the King of Prussia, and accompanied by a
brilliant staff. Surely this was the supreme
moment of the Emperor's triumphal career,
acknowledged as an equal by the proudest and
most imperious of Emperors, and by the most
powerful of European kings. The occasion is
the Review of the 6th of June, 1867—during
the progress of that Exhibition, which was at
the same time the most extensive in its aim
and the most successful in its end the world
has yet seen. This picture is by Meister, a
Prussian painter. The King of Prussia again
claims our attention in the great picture of the
Coronation. The Cathedral of Konigsberg is
gorgeous with crimson draperies, resplendent
toilettes, and gold-laced uniforms. The King,
in velvet robes, standing before a quasi altar;
bestows on himself honours which he swears
to respect, brandishing the sword and holding
aloft the eagle-headed sceptre. The floor of
the church is covered with red cloth, the
thrones are red velvet, the uniforms mostly
red, the wax lights on the altar blush the same
tint, and the scene is bewildering. The Queen's
robes, of cloth of gold and ermine are, however,
truly regal. We may be pardoned if in our
mind's eye we wander from the scene of glory
to the home in a foreign land of the poor,
blind, exiled King of Hanover, and think a
little cf the mutability of earthly grandeur and
the old, old warning—" Put not thy trust in
princes." But we have not yet done with
royalty. Her Majesty of Spain with the chiefs
of her army looks down on us grandly, and,
contrasted with the very ugly yellow-faced
old generals by whom she is surrounded, she
looks quite handsome. It is a vulgar repre-
sentation of one who has a most exalted posi-
tion and many Catholic virtues. Royalty again,
in a much more endearing phase—the sight of
the first lady in France bending over a poor
dying patient in the cholera hospital of Amiens,
4th June, 1866—brings a tear to the eye, and
we bless the Empress for her noble philan-
thropy. Another Review picture in the plain
of Longehamps, Oct. 26th, 1867, of which we
have little to say. The Emperor is seen in it,
riding beside the Emperor of Austria. Besides
the above Royal personages, the Prussian
Princes are seen in a well-painted picture,
meeting the Austrians after the great fight—
and, as usual, in French galleries, there is no
lack of generals in elaborate uniforms, and
many medals. There are also several spirited
paintings of the various Mexican battles. They
show the country to have been almost Abys-
sinian in its difficulties. The world grows more
wicked, and there are larger armies and more
wars and rumours of wars as "Civilization and
Progress " (so called) advance ; and it is as
well that artists should practice soldier paint-
ing if they are to perpetuate " the portrait of
the age." The French are never tired of the
pomp and circumstance of war, and of the
spectacle of men in smart uniforms killing one
another, and they certainly paint the bustle
of a fight, and particularly the more san-
guinary part of it with amazing fidelity. Lite-
rally, miles of battle-pieces may be seen at
-Versailles. We will notice but one more Royal
picture before turning our attention to the
religious paintings of the year. It is Winter-
halter's picture of her Majesty the Empress of
the French in the bloom and blush of female
beauty ; still there are indications of those lines
of thought the worked mind will trace even
on the most charming features. The fine pic-
ture is canopied under crimson velvet, and
surmounted by the Imperial crown.
Is there any artist about whom more various
opinions are held than about Gustave Dore ?
One thing most people agree about, and that
is that he has lost his earlier powers of idealism
and invention. We cannot find much to say
in-praise of the vast canvasses to which Dore
has given the name of " Le Neophyte." It is
certainly not a religious picture, and it is not
a pleasing subject for an apartment, or a good
specimen of the master for a gallery. Amongst
a choir of Dominican Monks, for the most
part " in the sere and yellow leaf," and with a
degree of ugliness rarely found out of France,
sits a Novice still in the freshness of youth,
and with some pretence to good looks. His
thoughts are wandering and his eyes diverted
from his breviary, and some remembrance of
the world he has left has cast a mournful
shade over his face. In the great picture of
the " Gaming Table," exhibited last year,
there was at least a moral ; but in " Le
Neophyte " we search in vain for either plea-
sure or edification. We fear to be thought
fault-finding ; but who could gaze with rever-
ence on the painting called " Le Naissance
d'Eve." Stretched on the ground, asleep, is
seen our first forefather Adam—him whom
we like to dream of as a being of angelic
heauty—
" The beauty of the world,"
" The paragon of animals,"
is represented as a swarthy giant, apparently
of Abysinnian type. He is asleep in by no
means a pleasant position. From his side
the Eternal Father draws forth Eve, who
looks about twelve years old, and bears on her
face a look of idiotic surprise. The supremely
Divine presence is represented in a most offen-
sive manner, and has rather the air of a con-
juror performing a feat of legerdemain. An
Englishman near us remarked, " Adam doesn't
even look like a gentlemen ! One positively
doesn't like to own having been descended from
him !" Why such a picture has one of the best
pcsitions allotted to it would be hard to say ?
As a contrast to this is a fine picture painted
for the new church of the Jesuits at Vaugirard.
of it '...4-clam arid Ev 2::6
see; ate Ate Diu zoyemat attitudes, as

though they were imagining the great atone-
ment of the future, and as though they saw
the " second Eve by her Divine maternity
restoring what they had lost. The most Blessed
Virgin and her Divine Son are wonderfully
well imagined, and occupy the upper part of
the painting. Perhaps the most impressive
picture of the year is Gerome's " Jeru-
salem." With great poetic feeling, as well
as novelty of treatment, he combi ties much
religious feeling. You see a procession re-
turning through a rocky defile into the city ; a
sky growing dark with clouds and tempest ;
a moon the colour of blood ; that procession
is returning from Calvary ; the great sacrifice
is even now being offered up ; the arid yellow
sand of the foreground, on which a ray of sun-
light still lingers, throws into strong relief the
shadows of the three crosses, on one of which
the Saviour dies ; a part of our Lord's sacred
body is seen in shadow. A picture we may
appropriately notice next is Albert Devricnds's
picture, called " The Old Age of the Blessed
Virgin Mary." We are all familiarized with
our own pre-Raphaelite school, now somewhat
died out, and we see in this year's exhibition
a very charming picture in the corresponding
school of Belgium by Baron Leys. While
admitting the great charm of the old Flemish
painters, and gazing with delight on the Blessed
Virgin as represented by them, in the costume
of a citizen of Bruges or Ghent, saying the
rosary in her oratory, and with all the domestic
appurtenances of the fifteenth century about
her, we are at the same time of opinion that
when a modern artist in cold blood repeats
these naivetes, the wilful anachronism becomes
a pedantry. These recollections, however fas-
cinating, are not a true progress in art. In
this picture we see the Blessed Virgin Mary
grown old, reposing in an antique carved bed,
by the side of a Gothic window (without which
angels are hovering, as though waiting to bear
her pure body to its home in heaven). At
the foot of the bed St. John writes at a quaint
lectern words which the mother of the Saviour
dictates; the vases, the chairs, the distaff; which
the young girl who watches and tends the
dying Virgin bears in her hands, the curiously
embroidered hangings, all suggest the school
of Van Eyck and Hemling. There is a little
suggestion in these revivals as of a grown man
apeing the simplicity of an infant. An archaic
taint many degrees less deep pervades the
very pleasing picture of " The Vow." A young
girl in pale blue prays before a little statue
niched in an oak tree ; her white peasant cap
seems like an aureole around an angel's head.
We are now attracted by a good representation
of a portion of the Vatican library, with its
superb Raphaelesque frescoes, its carved coffers
and presses, and its parquet floor. The Holy
Father is seen in it, book in hand, and near
him is the porcelain medieval font made ex-
pressly for the baptism of the Prince Imperial,
and presented to the Holy Father by the
Emperor. Another picture shows a portion of
the great procession of Corpus Christi return-
ing into St. Peter's through the colonnade.
A large painting, well placed, represents that
favourite subject of painters, " St. Francis
receiving the Stigmata." The great event
took place in a grotto near the Convent of
Alvernia, situate midway between the fountain
heads of the Arno and the Tiber, in September,
1224, on the day of the Exaltation of the
Cross. Never was a miracle more fully attested;
for two years before his death, in 1226, St.
Francis went through most of the towns of
central Italy, Perugia, Arezzo, Spoleto, Rieti,
&c., where whole populations bore witness to
the fact. Dante, eighty years afterwards
alluded to it. A picture called " The Lost
Soul," shows us a dreary common with night
coming on ; the body of a man whom death
has suddenly overtaken lies stretched on it ;
near him, in a halo of supernatural light,
stands his guardian angel, weeping ; a priest
has arrived with the sacred host, but too late.
The picture, as may be imagined, is a striking
one. A Franciscan monk, watching the dead
body of another monk, is in the style of the
old Spanish schools, and is painted with great
truth; the pale dead face is hardly more death-
like than the ascetic who watches by it ; with
true poetic feeling the light of the small oil
lamp falls on the face and hands of the watcher.
Who cannot read the meaning ? A fine pic-
ture commemorates a beautiful tradition that
has come down to us, viz., that St. Anthony
going to visit St. Paul the hermit found Lim
dead, but still kneeling in the attitude of
prayer, and with his arms extended in the
form of a cross. We have near it a striking
painting of St. John the Baptist, as the " Vox
in Deserto. Truly the traditions of the
Church are to the artist a mine of wealth
and inexhaustible. " The first thesis of St.
Thomas Aquinas " attracts notice ; he was
called, it seems, by his fellow students " The
Dumb Ox," in allusion to his silence. The
chapter is assembled to hghisfrofimrsthisessseaayt:
reiasrin
dumb ox, but he
one sounds that will rever-
iswvaihildlew Albert
de a cytahlulet
TtGehrroemas
ota,us
rever-
berate through the whole earth," A child
martyr laid in the catacombs close by an altar
tomb, and awaiting burial, and by its side a
youthful watcher, perhaps a brother, makes
a touching picture, and with this we conclude
our notice of the religious pictures.—Westmin-
ster Gazette.

proposed to M. Arman that they should be sold to
a third Power. Denmark, then at war with Prus-
sia, was in want of a " ram," and proposed to pur-
chase the Stonewall, but toblind the Prussian autho-
rities a treaty of sale was signed with the master
of the King's hounds in Sweden ? Mr. Dayton,
still suspicious, wrote to Sweden for informa-
tion, and the purchase of the vessel was denied
by Count Manderstrom. The American Minister
informed M. Drouyn Lhuys that he had been
deceived, and the precautions taken by Denmark
were almost betrayed. After a great deal of bother
the Stonewall, or Stoer-Koder, as she then was, got
under weigh with a French crew on board, and
reached Copenhagen. The French crew returned
home. Denmark no longer required the "ram,"
and asked for a reduction of £12,000, which M.
Arman would not make ; he demanded payment in
full or that the contract should be annulled. The con-
tract was annulled, and just then Capt. Bullock re-
peared and claimed his vessel. 'What could M. Arman,
who had sold the vessel to Capt. Bullock do? Could lie
prescribe to Captain Bullock what he should do
with his ship ? Was he bound to warn the Ame-
rican Government? The ship left Copenhagen with
a Danish crew, and was handed over to the Con-
federates in French waters. This was the only
vessel which escaped, and it was afterwards de-
livered up to the United States by the Spanish
authorities in the Havaunab, without having
effected a single capture, and was sold to the
Japanese for 2,500,000 francs. Such is the story
of the Stonewall as related by Maitre Lecan. It is
only fair to M. Arman to add that the charge of
accepting double payment has been disproved ; he
returned the money paid to him by the Confederate
agent, and when the Peruvian Government paid a
higher price than the original contract, he divided
the profits with Captain Bullock. M. Berryer has
yet to reply for the United States.

TIMA T THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WANTS.

(From the Nation.)

Are there any good reasons why the Democratic
party should now receive the approval of the people
of the United States, and why the management of
public affairs should now be committed to its charge?
In answer to this question, we state two proposi-
tions, which we think can be clearly established by
a reference to the political history of the country.
All of the principles and measures which the De-
mocratic party held and maintained during its pe-
riod of growth, strength, and activity have either
been abandoned by it, or have been finally and for
ever rejected by the people ; secondly, all of the
principles and measures which it now holds and
advocates are either in direct antagonism to those
which it formerly maintained, or are in equally di-
rect antagonism to the will of the people most
solemnly expressed by a life-and-death struggle for
national existence.

During the period prior to the adoption of the
present Constitution two ideas were contending
for the mastery—national power and local liberty.
The Articles of Confederation represented the latter
idea, the Constitution the former. Still, the Con-
stitution was so much a work of compromise that it
endeavoured to strike the golden mean between
two equally impracticable extremes, by giving ab-
solute supremacy to the General Government in
those matters which are peculiarly national, and by
leaving the States with the control of those matters
which are local and private. But the balance was
very nicely adjusted, and the old struggle has been
continued, and perhaps will be continued indefi-

nitely.
Those who originally opposed the Constitution
naturally became grouped into a party which up-
held the local supremacy of the States. To these
were added some men, like Madison, who had taken
a very active part in forming the organized law.
This party represented and upheld the idea of
personal, local, political liberty. We cannot doubt
that the Federalists were as patriotic, as hon-
ourable, and as devoted as their opponents ; but
they rather wished to govern for the people than
by the people. It is a mistake to suppose that
slavery entered very largely into the contest which
preceded the adoption of the Constitution. The
opposition to that instrument was most powerful
in Massachusetts, and only failed of success in
New York, notwithstanding the labours of Hamil-
ton and Jay, by a distinct understanding that a
number of amendments protecting individual and
political liberty should be immediately adopted ;
'while in South Carolina the proposed scheme of
Government was accepted by an overwhelming
majority. To this idea of local and personal
liberty was soon added that of the extension of
political rights, and particularly the right of suf-
frage. The party which maintained these princi-
ciples was sure of success, and success soon fol-
lowed. Everywhere aggressive, everywhere pro-
claiming the rights of man, and sympathising with
the peoples of Europe who were struggling with old
dynasties, this party won an easy victory, and long
held the results of triumph.

But from the very beginning of the present
Government many leaders of this party had not
only insisted with emphasis upon the rights reserved
to the States by the terms of the Constitution, but
had maintained that the States not only originally
were, but still continue to be, sovereign ; not only
originally were, but still continue to be, the parties
to a voluntary compact—a compact binding upon
them only during the continuance of their tacit con-
sent. This doctrine, simply because it was more
logical than any other which desired the supremacy
of the nation, and because it could not be success-
fully answered in any other way than by maintain-
ing the absolute sovereignty of the one people of the
United States, rapidly gained ground. Jefferson
was its first prominent apostle : Calhoun wrought it
out with irresistible logical deductions from his pre-
mises, and linked it with the cause of slavery. This
theory produced one necessary effect, that of deny-
ing to the General Government ,the authority to
decide upon its own powers. It is true that this
denial was by many limited to the Supreme Court.
Jefferson, the champion of absolute State sove-
reignty, and Jackson, the champion of a modified
State sovereignty, were ready enough to uphold the
power of the President while they held that high
office ; but they denied, with equal alacrity and
emphasis, the capacity of the Supreme Court to
settle any questions of constitutional construction,
and to pronounce upon the powers of co-ordinate
departments of the Government. It was Jackson
who made the brutal remark upon C. J. Marshall's
righteous decision in the Cherokee case, which the
Tribune is so fond of quoting. We think there was
a general consistency in these doctrines and prin-
ciples. Between the absolute State sovereignty of
Jefferson and Calhoun, and the modified State
sovereignty of Madison and Jackson, the line of
separation was shadowy and indistinct, and was
fast disappearing. It did finally disappear within
our own immediate times, and the Democratic party
has become united upon the theory of Calhoun.
Compare this retrospect with the present position
of political affairs. If there is one question which
the people of the United States have finally set-
tled, it is the absolute nationality and oneness of
themselves, separate and distinct from any State
boundaries and State organisations. If there
is one claim which they have deniel and for ever
rejected it is that of any independent State sove-
reignty. Millions of dollars, burdens voluntarily
assumed for generations, thousands of lives willingly

given up, attest this fact. We fought for our na-
tionality, not for an assemblage of Sovereign States.
What does the Democratic party offer us as the
result of the war and of the victory ? It proposes
the doctrine of absolute State sovereignty in its most
offensive form. It asserts the complete right of the
insurgent States to resume theirformer position with
no loss of political power or capacity ; it requires
no conditions from the rebellious commonwealth ;

it denies the authority of the Congress to legislate
upon the subject. Disguise it as we may, cover it up
with an assumed love for the Union, this is the
assertion of absolute State sovereignty, and a virtual
abdication of national authority. It offers a pre-
mium to organized rebellion. Should these views
be adopted, we believe that it would have been
better had the Southern States succeeded in their
era: upon the nation. For the precedent thus psta-
blifiloci would virtually say to every State : " There