Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-01-11

OONoA ASNS'
Every visit to the Capitol impresses me
more and more with its beauty and magni.
fcence. 1 return again and again to
wander under lofty columned arches, over
beautifully tesselated floors, past richly
carved pilasters, and inches fitted with
statued statesmen, and up and down the
massive marble stairways, rich in exquisite
carvings, with renewed delight from day
to day. Every visit also opens up new
views of speculative thought and feeling,
inspired as much by the ever-chalging
masses of humanity surging through these
marble halls as by the delegated few who
sit in honored places, to honor or disgrace
them by the thoughts they cherish, the
words they breathe, and the deeds they
perform. 4 s,
Here, as elsewhere, change has followed
closely on the noiseless footsteps of re-
treating time, and old things are rapidly
giving way to the new of the bustling
present. The immense marble columns,
Iiso long under the mallet and chisel of the
patient, tOiling sculptor, have at length
swung into their places, and now stand
forth in magnificent colonnades around
the CAPITOL, as so many monuments of the
greatness sHd glory Of a nation calmly
and uni1tsrruVtedly carrying On the
highest arts Of peace, during four years OF
a most terrible Intestine war. The eastern
interior of THE old CSpitOl has been shaken
to its foundation by the J~uggernautie
march of the Esprit Of improvement
and the sacred old is rapidly giving way
to the ire-proof armor of the new
Passing into the rotunda, 1 first notice
that Carpenters large painting Of the
Proclamation of Emancipation has Civ en-
place to a full-length, life-size portrait o.
Mr.. Lincoln, painted by some foreign
artist and sent here for sale. A darker or
glOomier representation of the Prince Of
Darkness could scarce be conceived than
this of the man, whom Of all others in
this or any age, should be represented in
in the lightof illuminated humanity. 1t
is to be hoped that some artist may yet
represent the "Great EmancipatOr' not as
a sitting / n darkness" but as luminous
with justice and mercy, signing the edict
of freedom to four millions of slaves, thus
bringing light out Of darkness and light
ening the world.
Powelfs stirring and unriEalled naval
picture of PertJ's Battle of Lake Erie, so
greatly, and so justly admired by all be-
holders here, has given place to Rother-
mers Christian Martyrs in the Coliseum,
Rome-a picture equally m~eritoTious In
drawing and color, but as far exceeding it
in grandeur of conception, sublimity of
expression and sentiment, as the highest
emotions, a~tfectional, intellectual and
spiritual, can surpass any delineation OF
the material elements combined with the
combative and destructive emotions so re-
quisite to a truthful representation of a
battle scene. No description, how
eyer truthful and elaborate, can convey
any iust idea of the marvellous beauty of
color, form and expression, in this paint
ing. The front and most conspicuous
group shows "a young mother who lies
fainting on the stone floor, while her beauti-
full babe caresses with its tiny hand her pal
lid face and neck, and is smiling, uncon-
scious Of the misery around. This wretched
mother is the wife of the nan who is fight
ing with the lion. Her old father supports
her listless arm, and her mother her head.
A look of agony is OF his face, while the
aged mother, stricken with grief, lifts her
eyes to heaven for help. Another child,
kneeling, nestles in her bosom" 1t is the
most pathetic representation on canvass l
ever beheld, and is enough to wiring tears
from eyes unused to weeping, and make
every beholder ~invnlnntarilY. thank God
that the days of martyrdom for opinions
sake are among the dark things OF a far
distant age.
P~-sine nom h to the Republican
Gallery of the House, 1 take another look
at Leutze's twenty or twenty-five thousand
dollars stereochrome painting of West
ward the course of empire takes its way"
which covers the wall above the first land
ing of the western staircase. Although no
favorite with ne from the first, it never
impressed me quite so unfavorably asnow,
fresh from the contemplation of a paint
ing really worth the money paid for this.
The jumbling together of carts and cat
tie, horses and mules, men, women and
children, with all sorts of traps and bag
gage, in the most inextricsble confusion,
pressed close against the side of a huge |
mountain, whose top is far away, and yet
so near that every fssure and chip of this
yellow rock composing it is clearly seen,
the two men planting the Stars. and
onthat pinnacle towering far to-
wards the heavens, and yet so near that
every star and stripe is distinctly visible,
also the expression of the mems faces,
and that mother with a baby at her
breast, perched half way up the mountains
side on a jutting rock, like Patience on a
Monument trying to smile at grief, are
a~bsurdities, that would condemn the finest
picture in the world, which this is
not. Isolated portions of the picture are
meritorious, but ns a whole it is the most
unmeaning, incongruous painting of its
pr~etentions 1 ever looked upon. Why, in
this enlightened age, with so much that is
historically grand in the past, and might
be made SO pictorially Instructive to the
present and coming generations, our
practically wise Legislators should
have accepted this allegorical burlesque on
,he oommon sense of our hardy, practical
as is this representative of "con-
fusion worse COMPOUNDED" is so far beyond
my feeble comprehension that 1 pass on
wondering how long ere dignity, purity
md truth in art will be recognized and de-
as its highest attributes.
Looking in upon the House from the
Republican Gallery 1 search in vain for
iome familiar faces that were wont to
greet me here. They are not, and others
lave their places. Some have been kept
by i~ll-pleased constituents, while
Jthers have made a "change of base" and
entrenched themselves on the
Speakers right, by fanking the Demo
rats on the left, who are now completely
between the sharpest radicals.
With Republicans to the right of them,
to the left of them, and Re-
,ublicans in the midst of them, their heavy
hinned leader will do well if he keeps
hem from being ground to political pow
Ter ere this session closes. Our Represen-
i've, Mr.. Spalding, an honored and in
member-Colonel Deming, of
Hartford, the finest looking man in (
he House-the poetic, large Drained
nd larger hearted j. A. Bingham.