The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-12-09
NEW YORK HERALD FRIDAY DECEMBER s5s-TRIPLE SHEET

SHEET.
gave to Tammany Is a. indellible as the spot of
| DuDcan's blood on the hands Of Lady Macbeth.
Neither the faces nor the hands of the Tam
many traitors will ever be clean again. And
it is these men, now luxuriating in govern
ment sinecures, who are responsible for the fact
| that the democratic party is in a minority in
this State. With their black republican organs
and their striped candidates they have done
their best to ruin the democracy. They should
| be cut off root and branch, without mercy.
Bring out the guillotine.
| Splendid Prospects OF American Art
An Era or Enthusiasm and Devolopc-
mcnt.
The fine art collections of New York have
been making large receipts for the last few
weeks. Never at any period has there been 50
much genuine interest and enthusiasm mani
tested in regard to them. Until the CLOSE Of the
exhibition of the "Heart of the Andes" on
Saturday, there was such rush to the studio
gallery that more than six hundred dollars
were taken on that day alone. The sensation
created by Palmer's "White Captive" has also
continued on the increase. At the rate at
which money is being taken the sculptor will
in few weeks receive more for admissions
than the amount of the price which he is to get
for the work itself. "The Home of Washing
ton" is having its fair proportion of patronage.
Not only are the visitors numerous, but the list
Of 9scriptions for the proof engravings Is
rapidly filling up. There can be no better
test Of the satisfaction of the public with the
work; for, whilst curiosity in regard to this
subject may attract people to see the picture,
only conviction of its merits can secure
subscribers.
| Nothing can be more gratifying to the
| friends of native art than these facts. They
prove that new epoch is opening for it,
and that the artistic genius of the country is at
last about to receive the encouragement from
the absence of which it has SO long languished.
We have always felt convinced that once the
public taste was turned in this direction, the
impulse impaired by it would be all.pervading.
| We now see the evidences of the fact in the In
creased activity observable in every branch Of
art in the large sums invested by connoisseurs
in the purchase of native works, and in the i'm
portation for sale of the choicest specimens of
the modern European masters. If the present
movement is not checked by unforeseen cir
cumstances, in another dozen years this country
will be one of the most profitable fields in the
world for an artist to exercise his talents in.
In proportion as commerce centres here, the
intellectual arts will thrive and flourish amongst
us. In their coincident success they will only
be following those inevitable laws of attraction
which from the earliest ages have governed
their progress.
1t is now generally admitted by historical
writers that republican institutions have a.
ways been the most propitious to the develope-
ment of art 1t is true that with the Chaldeans
and Egyptians, under the old despotic system,
originated the first rude notions of it; but it
was not until long after the early Greeks were
civilized by the colonies which arrived amongst
them from Egypt and Phonnicia, that art was
reduced to fixed principles and brought to its
highest point Of perfection according to the
ideal standard. Cadmus, who emigrated from
Egypt and founded Thebes, is additionally be-
lieved to have imported into Greece the ele-
ments of art, but Phidias, Praxiteles Apelles
and Lysippus were the creators of the dis
tinctive features which gave it, as it WERE, =
new birth. Had these men lived under the
Egyptian satraps instead of under republican
institutions, it is certain that art would have
remained in the primitive condition in which
they found it. Rome initiated the forms of
Greece, but could not appreciate her aesthetic
culture. Energy and brute force were
the types which the Romans deifed
and consequently the refining influences
of art were lost sight of in the gross
ness of this perverted taste. 1t was not to
Rome, properly speaking, but to the other
colonies or communities of Italy, that the early
progress of art in that country was due. Pliny
says that before the foundation of Rome paint
ing was carried to great perfection amongst the
Italians. Winckelman is of opinion that the
Greek colonies established at Naples and Noa
had at a very early period cultivated the imita-
tive arts and taught them to the Campanians
Whatever truth there may be in this specula-
tion there can be no doubt that the ancient
nected painting with the study of nature.
1t was in the medieval cities of Italy, how
ever, that art took its highest developement
Then the double influence OF republican institu-
tions and of the church impaired to it a new
and more vigorous life. Whilst the one left the
mind unoccupied by political cares, and at
liberty to imagine and create, the other lent its
aid to the encouragement of taste which ad-
vanced its own interests. But it was in those
|.republics which cultivated commerce the most
that art was most encouraged. The merchant
princes of those communities We'd with mon.
archs in the munifcence Of the patronage which
they bestowed upon it.
Such, apparently, is the destiny which is
opening to art in this country. With the rapid
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