New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-05-09
TIE Y1TONIL ACADEMY OF DESIGN,
roRrY-sEcoND ANNUAL ExnInITIoN,

embarrassing character OF the display wholly to the
,ls,,ce Of many well-known names; to the defec-
finn which il even greater this year than last OF the
loading men Of the Academy We, ourselves, are
,ruelly Indifferent to the absence Of many OF these
gentlemen; so far. indeed are we from regrettng
them that we usually experience happy now Vi
spirits on glancing over the walls and finding that'
for some reason which we do not care TO inquire MO-
they hve declined submitting their canvases to the
ordeal of public criticism But. then, we know very
well there arc a great many people who can put UP
with things that are not at all to our mnd ana WHO
manage to find flavor in productions that seem 10
AS insipid and we have little bigotTy IN our
composition that easily sympathize with those
who miss their favOrites from the walls OF the Acad-
envy Yet knowing as we do that the most of these
fayorites only serve as gauge to show at how low
point the taste of the majority rests venture to
assert that the trouble with this present exhibition
is, not that so many of the sO-called leaders
are absent, as, that so few new names appear
giving promise that the places of the absent will be
shortly filed and filled by men of greater merit.
Here is the rub that art is stagnant; there IS
hardly ripple the surface, for sign of life.
The men who have made their reputation plOd along
in the old ruts the reasts, whose movement
promised much few years ago have not had force
enough either TO create separate school OF to in
fucncc the schools already existing and the great
majority of the artists the men who never had any
reputation, but who Were once year, known to eX-
ist have of course steadily deteriorated. Such men
as Brevoort Bellows, Gray, Carmencke Beard, Bris
tOl. Carter, Cranch, CaTlin FTedercks, Hart Hows,
Inncss Lambdin Hicks, Martin Oertel, Powell, Ed
win White and Alexander Wust-men whose names
appear in the catalogue year after year, and from
whon no one ever looks to anything new, or in
teresting or promising lalas, some of them
had a glimmer of promise once but 1t Is
gone with youth and youths enthusiasm and
beliefs)-these men have of course, NOT been
able to stand still more than other men;
they have not grown better and, of necessity, they
have grown worse. There was time when Mr..
Beard for instance, showed a genuine talent, that
only needed a right direction to have earned him a
lasting and honorable reputation He has real vein
of humor of kind quite rare in this country perhaps
rare anywhere, and if lie could have en-
plOyed it on subjects of the right sort, he
might have done us great service, for the
part the man of humOr has to play in society
is one that cannot be dispensed with and we are
iust now getting we best may without a man
of humOr among our artists. We by no means for
get Mr. Mast but, in original power of humOr-
power to perceive humorous situations and power to
express them-Mr. Mast is mere child to Mr. Beard.
He hits hard sometimes, and puts base, mean,
treacherous men and their actions into plain dark,
hard lines that rather rouse our anger against the
evidOeTs than excite our miTth but he is more of
satirist and somewhat unimagnative one,
than humOrist, and, certainly is not fit rival for
Beard as Beard might easily have been But Mr..
Beard chose to be coarse, and disagreeable and
sometimes, downright silly; and then he tried to be
tragic, and was, of course merely funny, and so he
has wandered about, weakly and without purpose,
wasting his cleverness and aiming less and less
steadily at the mark until it idle to hope that
he will ever do anything more for us than he has
s thus far done. But, who examine the truthful
painting of the squirrels fur in No. 309 1.-The Hunt
( or Flask" without feeling that if Mr.. Beard had
chosen. he might have made himself fl st-rate ami
Inal-painter; while his sense of humOr is shown in
the irresistible faces Of his monkeys in No. 2S2,
'.F1aw in the Title" which picture we yet, cannot
care enough about, to find the meaning of.
How many people yetreuan, who are interestedin
Mr. Lambdn, we have no means of knowing, but we
should think their number must be greatly diminished
since the day when he sent US his Deserted House.
picture all of whose shortcomings were charged TO
youth and inexperienee and ON whose tenderness,
poetic feeling and truth to nature hope and aDtei-
patton kindly smiled Certainly, there was much in
Mr. Lambdin, OF, atleast something and as certain
ly, there is little in him now. There may be study
bat there are none Of the fruits of study there may
I've observation, but we get none of its results; a
feeble payfulness feeber sentimentality, drawing,
bad even for the President of Artists Fund Society,"
and color in mOnOtOnOus scale, untrue TO nature
anywhere and unjustifed by any laws. 'l1 .oI
OF Mr. CTancb, painter, we suppose no one,
from the first expected much; at least, if any
one ever did, his expectation could not have been
founded on any specimens he had of this artists
work We remember small pictures by him
now anf- then, which had faint suggestion of
the color Of nature, but they were suggestions as
vague and perhaps, accidental as the chance COM
bination Of hues painters pallet, and would no
more bear deliberate looking at. We have some
times thought that Mr.. Cranch's pictures Of Venice
may l,e intended as sort of cOunterblast to Mr..
Ruskins enthusiastic praises of that beautiful city
and that, having private pique owing to feas,
or Ian dlords or something else against Venice and
another piQne against Mr.. Ruskin, be may have de-
termincd on crusade against both offenders, and
registered an oath to prove, to Mr.. Ruskins shame,
that the much Wanted Queen of the Adriatic is a
flight, and that her builders were equally ignorant
OF the laws of construction and of the laws ofdesgn
is true that if Venice looked, in reality, she
does in Mr. Cranchs pictures of her, it would I've diff
calt to overstate the exaRgeration of which Mr.
Ruskin has been guilty but we trust that he win
consider the matter and try to make the acQuaint
ance of the city under favorable circumstances
We incline to believe that Venice must have beau
ties in spite Of Mr. Cranehs representations and he
would achieve popularity great deal by fall
ing in with the common notion. than by insisting
his own peculiar within. iri ro, ,aal11o5 stl trsa1
Another name whose praise is sounded year after
year withdamnable teFations that Of Mr. George In
hess This genteman's pictures have become queerly
associated in the minds of certain persons with what
they are pleased to call the poetis" and 1.-THE
ideal but they have no more real claim to such dis
Al