New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-05-08

| pictures, and becomes wearisome when its FIRST
suggestion is passed. When, as in Nature, it is
only the comprehensive inviting portal to q glo-
rous temple-the illuminated initial Of perfect
| poem, then it fuflls its true Office. We do not
mean to imply that there is evidence of an excu-
sve reliance upon color in Mr.. BAKERS pictures,
but merely to remind him of the temptation of
trusting ANYTHING less than the best, however
much master he may be ofthat accessory. Now
the whole charm of No. l9l, although not of the
picture opposite, Going TO School tl69,l lies in the
color. The grouping is not graceful or poetic, the
landscape is not suggestive, the figures are not
persons, they are only forms useful for the pur-
pose of displaying color. The management for
that however is mastery. The color led
along from the dark dog on the ground up to the
| gipsy hat in the sunlight, and the transparent
shadows-all are admirable. In Going TO School
| Q69) there is exquisite sentiment. The boy is
characteristic figure Of heroic, confident, eager
boyhood quite able to guard the girl, whose maid
enness is finely contrasted with his conf
dence. In Portrait Of a Lady (22O) Mr.. BAKER
has employed his skill to somewhat common
place result 1t is too much an Exhibition pic
| in dangerous direction. Far more pleasing is
| No 377, also Portrait of a Lady. 1t has reality
| and modelling, and is not fiat surface OF paint
In Forest Trees 1889 there are the same freshness
and yivacity, the same view of Nature at rsthand,
| and the same bold yigor and confidence of treat
ment This is notable illustration of an uninter-
esting scene treated without monotony Of effect.
Among the great advances upon last year, MIR.
RrcHARps's landscapes are to be noticed. They
have gained in every way. He gives US some
pleasing "reminiscences of Lake George and New
England scenery. Mr.. WILLIAMSON, also, seems,
as last year, to have many elements of the good
artist. His color, although crude, is brilliant;
there is vigor and effectiveness in his treatment,
but he wants careful study and an accuracy of de-
tail subjected to harmonious breadth of impress
sion. His pictures have air of hurry, as if they
were not only painted but completed, an premier
COUP The eye cannot search deeper and deeper
into them with growing satisfaction, but finds that
the first striking impression was the best. In a
landscape Cl3,) for instance, to which the intro
ductory verse of Longfelow's Prelude to the Voices
of the Night motto, there is bold bit OF
forest scenery effective certainly, but not ilustra
tive or even suggestive, of the spirit of the verse,
which deals entirely with romantic "sylvan
scene," such wood as Orlando would have haunt
ed, carving Rosalind's name upon the trees. 1t
should constantly reveal something more delicate
and dreamy-but No. ll3 is quite the reverse of all
this. So with the small pictures Nos. AZ and Sc
the subjects are poetic and suggestive,- lawns,
fountains marble terraces and bright drapery, but
the effect is insufficient. Such works should eth
er be purely exquisite in color, so that the mind
would derive from that the whole impression in
tended and rest satisfied, as in many of the
French Diazs small things,-or..it should be elab-
GRATED with thoughtful detail, to reward, while it
allured, the eye. As it is, the eye exhausts the
picture in the first glance, which leaves vague
| impression of some romance or song, but the pic
ture is not that romance song, as it should be.
Only the most consummate and accomplished gen.
us can dash off, fine things, and then, only when
it is accomplished. Mr.. WILLIAMsoN's pictures
superficial, they are thin, not rich and sugges-
tive, but they show so much facility and boldness
that trust to see depth and feeling added to
them. We notice some very carefully painted
small landscapes by Mr. RICHARDSON, drawn
chiefly from English scenery The difficulty with
them is that they are too much pictures-they
have too little individuality of observation and
treatment and find their parallel in the well-con-
sidered, unexceptionable verses, which are yet not
poetry
Mr.. WANDEsFoRDE exhibits in Vespers (ll9) a
picture of great beauty and feeling, unfortunate
only in being moonlight scene, for as no one is
quite sure how the landscape really does look in
the moonlight, no is quite at ease in his judg-
ment. But the eli arm and success of the present
picture is the spirit of vespers and Of evening
which broods TRANQUILITY over it, and the cold gloom
of Alpine shadows upon the lake is solemnized
and made tender by the lighted chapel upon the
cliff, and the necessary association of the chanted
service. Mr.. WANDEsroRDBs Pass Of Glencoe,
Scotland (25S) water-color painting, is one Of the
most admirable things, although utterly unobtru-
sive, in the exhibition. 1t represents mo untain
glen with a narrow road creeping around the hill
side out ofsght, and skirtng dark tam. The noun
| tains pile away into the mist of distance There
is no figure upon the road none upon the water.
There are no trees, or, at most, scant patches of
shrubbery upon the rough soil. The silence, the
desolatiOn, the suen grandeur Of mountains are
there. But it is not an alpine grandeur, and there
the artist is shown, for with this material, common
to all mountainous regions, he has made picture
as different from Alpine, as Scotland from Switzer-
land 1t is work of very various excellence, and
well worthy the finding out. No water-color that
we have seen in our exhibitions compares with it.
Death of an Artist.
JOHN HAvILAND, the architect, died on
the Goth of March in Philadelphia, and we are not