The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1865-12-27

limited sense; but it is small art only-the art
that Hatters The vanities of that aristocracy.
The true nurse of art is freedom-the bold
spirit and universal intelligence Of the peo-
ple-public pride, public taste-the greatness
that grows up everywhere in free atmos-
phere, and that needs to be commemorated by
glorious monuments.
We see all this in the bold and magnificent
manner in which art starts into existence here.
American art in its beginnings not only sur
passes the beginnings Of art elsewhere, but 1t
makes bold step to equal in its first touches
the final glories OF art in other lands. Only
glance at its themes. The large thought of the
first Napoleon recognized its greatness in this
respect; and one of the first recognitions Of
American art in the world was made by that
wonderful man to a picture by an American
OF Marius Sitting on the Ruins Of Carthage
great one of one fallen city desolate on the
ruins Of another fallen city. Few themes
touched by the pencil are grander; and of
those few the same painter chose another in his
Landing Of Columbus. This grandeu, Of
thought characterizes American art, and, by
keeping It above pitiful themes, gives it ma
tional spirit II predominates in the works Of
those living American artists who are most
worthy Of the fame they have already won. II
is seen in the pictures Of Church and Bierstadt,
whose pencils are devoted to the most magnii-
cent phases of the American landscape in
those Of De Haas, devoted to the treatment of
the element that is wrought into our national
history by SO many naval glories; in Powell
and Thompson, whose work in the world
will be to individualize for the eyes of the
made their names the household words Of our
people. These names might alone form the
nucleus of a national pantheon. They are
complete circle. They typify the glories that
American art is to achieve, as we'll as the direc-
ton it is to take Such power in expressing
Church's Niagara, Andes, and Icebergs, rises
far beyond what has hitherto been sup
posed the limit Of painting in that direc-
tion-and gives that gentleman the control
of a new sphere-a hitherto undiscovered
value of art. The world has seen nothing
finer in the attempts to represent the splendors
of nature on canvass than Bierstadt's picture Of
the Rocky Mountains. It dwarfs all ordinary
landscape pictures as completely as its subject
dwarfs the hills that are the usual favored
themes of landscape painters. Powell's splen-
did Discovery Of the Mississippi by De Soto in
dicates, as did also Vanderlyn's Columbus,
that the American painter need not hunt in Eu-
ropean or Asiatic legends for subjects capable
of giving the noblest employment to the imagi-
nation. Launt Thompson's genius gives pro:
mise of q future that will leave him without a
living superior in sculpture. Already his
Trapper, his Hamlet, his admirable pieces OF
porsraitnie and his Napoleon have fixed his
fame by their rare and positive excellence
He has been commissioned to make statue Of
the grand old leader Of the Sixth corps, General
Sedgwick, that will be an achievement In his
true feld-a field in which his labors
will undoubtedly cast . splendid lnstre on
American art. De Haas is one of the few
marine painters whose pictures have the very
atmosphere Of the sea--whose style is as crisp,
oleaA fresh and invigorating as the breeze that
nlls the snowy sails he paints. His sphere is
to loom up as grandly in the American Pan
theon as do the names Of Hull, cambridge,
Perry, Lawrence, Decatur, Farragut and Porter
on the pages Of our history.
American artists are different from the major
part Of those Of other lands, in being men of
independent character. They never have pa
irons, and are never the property Of picture
brokers. Not yielding to any in the fidelity
with which they study all the moods Of nature,
they do not bend to study the moods of any
minor power, and thus never degrade art to
caprice. They hardly ever, therefore, become
the slaves Of necessity, and we do not find in
their lives any account Of the pitiful shifts that
belittle 50 many Of the sons Of genius, and are
involuntarily kept in memory as we glance at
their pictures. In the labors Of men such as we
have named 1t il easy to foresee the future
Rlories of art on this continent. And when
literature, music and the drama shall have the
same free ehance-when they shall feel the in
spiration that rises directly from the people,
and shall cease to be copied as servilely as the
Paris fashions--they also win be equally great.
Then, and then only, the American mind win
be recognized in oil the spheres Of intellectual
effort, just as distinctly as the grand qualities
Of the American people are recognized in tho
last four years Of our history.
Ex-Rsbels and Emperors.
x seems that OF. Governor Harris made an al.
surd bluuder in supposing that he had had an in
terview with the Emperor and Empress 81 Mexico
1t the imperial palace far famed halls of the
Nontezumas''-ss asserted in his recent letter.
The man he saw at the palace, according 70 his