Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-12-23

lhen he has awful thoughts OF Don Positive,
his next neighbor, who writes art-crifiques
for the Ne rius Ultra, and solemnly informs
him that it is duty he owes to society to
protest against everything that is mt high
art. Nobody must be left in peace to have
any thing but the publications of the Arun-
del Society, artists proofs of Raphael's
Madonnas, or proot-caste of the statues in
the Louvre, or something else which has the
seal of ages-a written certificate of good
antiquity giving him leave to admire. Poor
Stubbs does 1T admire the Madonna San
Sisto half much one of Tait's pictures
Of chickens picking at worm, or some hens
in a barnyard, which put him in mind of the
pleasant old days when he was "a boy, and of
the old farm and meadows, and father and
mother, and our folks who are gone. All
this almost fills his eyes with tears as he
looks, but Stubhs is good fellow and when
/ Don Positive tells him with lordly air that
he can buy such things if he pleases but be
! feels it his duty to inform him how very
trashy they are in point of art, like good
Christian he wipes his eyes, and goes res gn
! edly and gives hundred or two of dollars
for an old proof engraving of the San Sisto,
and hangs it up where those dear, too charm
ing hens and chickens were to have been, and
feels that he has done his duty by society.
TO be sure, he does mt bodle for the
picture, and never will, hut Don Positive
tells him it S high art and he has saved him
from getting poor thing for his money-and
that's comfort
Mrs. Stowe has evidently read and en-
joyed the egotistical effusions of the I" art
critics y of the New York Tribune and
New York Nation The manner in which
they sometimes pooh-p pooh the most beauti-
full, recent art blications-Prang's inim-
! l. ID
20 into ecstasy over the medieval repro
ductlons of the Arundel Society, which are
less appropriate for modern American
home than a series Of fifteenth century
sermons would be suitable for modern
American library, is well hit off in this
and the succeeding passage, which, how
ever, we have not space to copy.
She then grapples at once with the car
dinal axiom of the art-creed Of these crit
les, and bravely denies in words, what the
people have always denied in acts, that
high art pictures are suitable for the
adornment of home The language will
be reckoned little less than blasphemous
by these pretentious writers, but every
friend of living art and the education of
the people in art will be glad to see her
assail the idol which they worship so de-
voutly. She says:
High art means, as nearly as we can
make it out, what professed artists and in
structed people, who understand the techni-
cal difficulties to be overcome in it, consider
as interesting and valuable. 1t also means
what past ages have liked and enjoyed, and
things that historically interesting,
the record Of the modes Of thinking and
in 81 kny
many Of the best records of these in cast
engravings are not suited to family life, but
ought to be kept in museums and portfolios.
The admirable engraving of old blind Bells
arius is chsf ds'GUcre of engraving art.
touching and tragic picture, but who wishes
at all hours to be confronted by the image of
a blind father with son bitten by serpent
in his arms. however well represented. The
better thr representation Of Sl.ch subject the
,Dorse II makes II for horne picture. Hung
in bedroom, this work Of high art might
give bad dreams and possible nightmare
and it had better be kept in portfolio and
admired when the subject Of proof cravings
is up. If a person should be so fortunate or
unfortunate to get capital photograph of
the first draft Of that boodv-hones picture.
Michael Angeles Last Judgment, where
the Judge looks like a prize ii ,hter in a pas
sion, shaking his fist at his mother such a
art fol there is abundance Of high art in
this very disagreeable picture, but we should
earnestly recommend him not to frame it
and hang it up for the terror of his wife and
the bad dreams Of his innocent babes.
Mrs. Stowe then lays down her first rate
rule for the selection Of home pictures,
which is as excellent as it is heterodox:
..As n general thing, she says, what is
not high art, but only respectable and per
missible art, is the best company for every
day family life. AS we should not think it
amusing to have Satan's Speech to the Sun
recited at our breakfast table, so neither
should we think Schehe's picture of Fran
cisca di Rimini proper thing to be forever
talking to US from the walls of our parlors
or bedrooms.
She would not have all pictures mere
prettinesses she would have some repre-
sent the higher side Of our nature but
such solemn and grand subjects should not
be conspicuously placed in reception rooms,
or parts of the house where the mere sur
/ face-intercourse Of life goes on. She then
adds:
/ = Pretty genre pictures, such Prang is
getting up SO many of, have certain value
as house ornaments quite Independent of
considerations of high art A red cashmere
shawl carelessly thrown down a garnet
colored sofa, with CLEAN of sunshine across
it, often forms a bit of coloring that turns
room into picture. So Prang's overturned
basket of bright red cherries, hung on a wall
of proper tint, is pleasing bit of color,
pleasing because it attempts not too much
and does all it attempts well. So. also, pious
notices and texts in Illuminated letters have
double value,-they ornament and they
teach These have no value one way or the
other as art but they arsvery pleasant and
useful as household ornaments
Mrs. Stowe then teaches the alphabet of
all true culture-selt-relianc and cour-
age to reject the advice of others, however
pretentious, when their dicta are at utter
variance with ones own impressions. OF
course, this does not imply unteachable
ness it only demands reason for the faith
proffered to us. She says:
The great value of pictures for home
should be. after all, in their sentiment. They
should express sincere ideas and tastes of the
! household and not the tyrannical dictd of
some art critic OF neighbor. 1t is desirable
that the drawing and painting should be
GOOD and respectable, and that the family
should be we'll enough informed to know
that picture painted on japanned waiter,
however smooth and pretty, is not good
picture simply because it is smooth and pref
ty. We should try to cultivate our taste
and then express it but the value OF family
pictures in a great degree should consist In
the fact that they do sincerely represent our
own tastes and preferences and not those OF
others 1t is desirable that they should be