The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-10


As sign Of the times the growing popular
taste for art IL wholesome and civilizlng. Life
does not only consist of money getting and bre sd
winning. and the humblest strfvings after the
beautiful tend to elevate us and to refine our ns-
ture Of its coarser and more selfish parts.
We have not yet taken our proper stand in art,
as we have in science, with the older nations.
Public taste Is the growth Of time, and in the de-
velopment of . material prosperity, more rapid
and far-spreadng than the world has ever yet be-
held, 1t Is not surprising If our robust youth is
little deficient in those grsces and refinements
which are the result Of long and special training,
until habit has become second nature. The dit
ference In political and social condition, and the
existence Of privileged and wealthy classes may
SEEM moreover, TO favor the cultivation Of intel
lectual refinement and art tastes. As an Offset to
this, and an encouragement to ourselves, we have
but to remember the magnificent and unspproach-
able realizations OF artistic conceptions IN the
free republics of Greece and the scarcely inferior
glory Of the free cities Of Italy and Germany.
when spring tide Of social and religious impulse
set In on the nations, and the imagination Of man
kind was all afiame and revivi6ed with enthusiasm
In new-found truths.
II, indeed, our sell. examination were limited to
comparison Of our native art with those i'm
ported originals of foreign name and lineage
which are SO abundant shout this time, we could
well afford to be content. But such merchandise.
expressly manufactured for our inferior market,
Is no fair representative of European modern
schools, and can be passed as beneath criticism.
The first remark which our galleries elicit Is
I" the plentiful lack " Of good portraits. How
rarely do we see anything above signboard me-
diocrity Daubs in color, coarse In drawing,
literal In conception, and meaningless In expires
sion, our portraits have all the poverty and unlife-
like fxedness of photographs, without the re-
deeming merits Of mechanical finish and momen-
tsry identity. Probably portrait painting is not
remunerative, nor does ii deserve to be so, until
higher talent is enlisted in its service. That ge-
NAL satrist Gay, tells of the painter who fright
ened away his patrons with his truth. Apart from
tele ii Is of cardinal truth that the function of art
Is not merely to represent or reproduce nature
as she Is, but TO seize and perpetuate her higher
aspects, and to combine into harmony with the
actual, the grandest and most deeply expressive
possibilities browning the material with the spir
itual, and thereby giving to the common mind
glimpsee into the projections known only to the
inspired seer. What marvellous, subtlest percep.
ton of all hidden qualities Of the subject are ex
pressed In some of the portraits of the old mas.
tiers! Reynolds, their closest modern imitator,
had the same divine gift of spirtualzing and
idealizing the common place men who sat to him.
And then their mechanical excellence, their su-
materials Every portrait in their hand, whether
1t be Lucrezia Borgia, or a Fallen, or Siddons,
gives us not only the outward and visible form
and dress of beautiful woman or Of O high. born
gentleman, but invites our estimate and judgment
on the individual in his habit as he lived and In
bis nature as he was.
] have not the least faith that Lorenzo the Mag
nifcent was always the pensive, delicate, finely
balanced intellect that Raphael Il think has
transmitted him to ms. He was statesman and q
trader, and his nature had its worldly side. Nor
were heavenly loDgings and celestial eyes more
plentiful among gypsies or beggar-boys in Mu-
rilos day than now. We have likenesses that
might satisfy detective with the iutensifying of
the actual man into the ideal possible. The fleet
ing, yet dominant character-expression for good
or evil has been seized and set down for all time.
live In hopes yet to see our aldermen and poll
ticians handed down as gentlemen and patriots
that Knight have been :" while our portrait pain
tiers can make of capitalists and men of science, a
race of merchant princes and heroic compellers
Of natures forces.
There is little legend of Michael Angelo. The
artist, entering inn, finds the family engaged in
q quarrel. young man had been betrothed to
The daughter Of the landlord, and claimed his
bride. The sordid, gripping soul closed all argu-
ment and remembrance, by stretching out his
hand and swearing that the suitor should have no
daughter of his until he could pay down hundred
crowns. Michael Angelo, compassonating the
youths agony Of disappointment, picked up q
piece Of charcoal from the hearth, and on q sheet
Of coarse paper made rapid SKETCH gave 1t to
he youth, and said GO to the Canon Agostno
give him this and ask him for q hundred crowns.n
The youth wondering obeyed, paid the price rs
MS marriage portion, and married. The sketch
was afterwsrd known as Michael Angeles hand
II told of the rapacious greed that clutched the
price of human hearts. And to this day the spec
lator stands appalled, as by rent in the smoke
curtain of Dante's hell, at this compression OF q
soul life into single gesture.
Think you it was only long. lean, crook-fin
yered Fagin hard he drew? Try the photograph
If such one, and how much horror would 1t
woke
1t is not enough, then, for portraits to be mere
kenesses.-lWilkes's Spirit.