The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1849-06-27

exhibition OF these masterpieces might well
enough occupy some of the chambers Of
the edifce now erecting in our city, and
would be source of much interest and
qualification to the many hundred strangers
who annually visit us from all sections Of
the Union. We copy from the Church.
man an interesting article in regard to
this collection, which is written apparently
with much knowledge and appreciation Of
art, and manifests profound feeling of
the relation of art to religion.
From the Churehmaa.
THE "OLD MASTERS"
Mr.. EDIroR = Not having seen in your paper any
notice of the paintings of the Old Masters" now
on exhibition in this city, permit me to call atten-
ton to the subject 1t is fact, would think TO
attract every christian scholar, that here, in this
crowded market of fashionable and vulgar follics
| we have what country has never before seen,
some of the noblest conceptions of Titan, Murlllo,
Carracci, and Rubens.
1t is boast that, in age of bald, bare Puritan
| ism upbuiding the church of God in the
Z" beauty Of holiness" and breathing into the mind
of the time the soul of more genial christian cul-
ture. And yet it has been Of the faults of
our popular Professionalism that it is religion of
wire-drawn dogma, of narrow polemics, of hard In
tellectua character, wanting in those elements of
beauty that take hold of the Imagination and heart
| of men. We want profounder feeling of the rela-
ton Of art to religion-of the union between the
true and the beautiful in Christianity. The princl-
pies of beauty written souls, and the faith
we profess, so far from destroying fufls our ma.
ture it awakens all that is lofty and refining Nay,
Christianity has breathed the new life of its super
natural truths into art has recreated and hallowed
it as the very soul of its forms.
One of the grand aims of the Catholic Church
this day is TO effect, no other age has, pure,
| true union of religion with art. Rome has ever
held this chief secret of her power to gather into
her system all the influences Of music architecture,
| and painting; and thus has halo of glory been
thrown about even her falsehood, and many of re-
fined culture been attracted to her BOSOM Should
not be to learn this 'topen secret?" May there
not be union of intelligent faith, as well of
perstition, with beauty And, again, the aesthetic
tendency Of age taking still another false d.
rection. In many minds it is becoming severed
| from all religious truth Our modern aesthetic crit
icism is too often the echo of transcendental un-
belief There is fear lest with educated men, amid
the ieless dogmas of the time there shall spring up
a mere religion of beauty, -four of sentiment with
out christian root; nay, 1t may be a rank poison
flower, whose perfume loads the atmosphere with
death. We want more and more culture that
shall combine with reverent faith the warm glow of
hallowed imaginaton; of refined taste that shall
unite in itself all elements of power, and breathe
into this hard, iron-bound age the soul of living,
a loving beautiful religion. For this there needs
the knowledge of christian art. Let plety give Its
wealth. without stint, to the rearing of these noble
! gothic piles Let us cherish every form in which
the spirit Of Christianity lives But, more than all,
perhaps should hallow the great masters of
painting. 1t is this that springs from the soul of
our religion. AS the ancient mythology had its
| embodiment in sculpture, the art of the "seen and
tvf0 tpti,f snolo
revelation of inward, spiritual, mysterious truths.
We return here to the pictures which have sug
gested these remarks, hoping that, so far from d.
gresson, they will fall with truthful meaning
on the minds Of others they flowed naturally
from the emotion the subject enkindles in
ourselves As we have sat- day by day, gazing on
the noble works of the christian past flor it will
be hardly necessary TO say that the best of these
relics of the "Od Masters" on sacred subjects)
as we have dwet on the fadeess faces which speak
from the canvass the Christ in infancy and age the
Holy Mother, the "noble army of martyrs and
saints, we have seemed in that still presence, TO
enter behind the veil of shape and covering, and to
be brought anew into Catholic felowshp we have
felt if more of the sublime mystery Of christian
| truth and christian holiness breathed from
the inspirations Of art than from the books Of the
| oogy. There is in them a majesty of repose-a
serene depth of devouon-a light and life that flow
from the religion of God alone. None look
upon them without the feeling that only an age Of
of Christianity which inspired them that alone can
interpret their beauty. The mere connoisseur may
measure them by the standard of nature, the
rules Of sciences but the christian scholar instinct
with the truths they embody, behods in them the
! supernatural in its 'gorhed BODY" We need not
dwell on them in detail. II would be hard to ex-
haust their variety. Zach Of these sacred paintings
utters some noble truth, some living affection.
EACH though 'its voice is not heard /" has speech
ard language" all its own. Each is living oracle
Of Christianity. As we pass from one face to an
other Of the Christ, in the various conceptions of
Muro, Of Carracci, of Rubens Of Bartolomeo, Of
Guido, and the rest we feel what an exhaustless
mystery Is IN that Goldman; amystery which has
inspired so often the vision Of devout genius, has
been and is still Swallowed forth in so many forms
| Of beauty. Among these paintings few stand
conspicuous in their excellence. The "Flight into
| Egypt" of Muro realizes more fully to us than
any other work Of art the blessed bond Of human
love in which that Divine infancy nursed; in
that Christ is the yearning child in that Mary the
most complex yet harmonious conception, min
Cling all the emotions Of maternal tenderness with
the instinct of reverence: "The Mother struggling
with the Worshippern
The Mystic Marriage of St. Catharine is of rare
charm. sanity purity, virgin holiness, is on
the face Of the fair martyr, that dfuses itself like
| an atmosphere around us. Our eyes and souls are
fastened that one countenance and even the
lesser figures saints, cherubs, noble they are,
seem Ozark" with the Excessive bright of that
central object The Resurrection" by Rubens,
is a work Of vast power; the form seems instinct
with the fulness Of risen life every look,
every motion Of foot and hand, reveals the con-
queror over sin and the grave-the shroud drops
from Him, and the stone rolls as if conscious from
the gate Of the tomb But Of all these paintings the
Il Titan seems to us the noblest. In the "Martyrdom
Of ST. Lawrence" is embodied the omnipotence Of
christian filth. We sit and peer into those deep
masses Of shade until the scene, with its wild con-
tras of light and darkness, Stiffness and motion,
overwhelms with terror; but at last our thoughts
FIX unmoved one grand object; we forget the
glarng torches, the executioners, the burning pile
we behold only the sublime sufferer, calm in pain,
gazing upward with a look that "sces Heaven
opened and Christ at the right hand Of God" II
is a marvel Of art Il is enough to repay him who
looks on il with the richest recompense Of holy
thought But we will add no more, only to
commend to every scholar and every christian man
the study Of these noble paintings. And If the
artist to catch some hint Of inward beauty, will sit
e.. IN h<fO