Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1869-02-09

ems picking at worm, or some hens in a
barnyard, which put him in mind of the
pleasant old days when he was 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 Stubs is good fellow, and
when Don Positive tells him with a lordly
air that he can buy such things if ye plea
ses, but he feels it his duty to inform him
how very trashy they arc in point of art,
like good Christian he wipes his eyes,
az ''f i%n ,' Of dollars for an old proof engray-
ing Of the San Sisto, and hangs it up where
those dear, too charming hens and chick
ems were to have been, and feels that he
has done his duty by society. To be sure,
he doesn't care bodle for the picture,
and never will, but 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 eifusions Of the 'art
critics" of the n. Y. TriJune and N. Y.
Nation. The manner in which they pooh
pooh the most beautiful, recent art publi-
cations-P Prangs inimitakablc chromos, for
example-and always go into ecstacy over
the medieval reproductions of the Arun-
del Society, which are less appropriate for
modern American home than series of
fifteenth century sermons would be suita-
BILE for modern American library, iswell
hit off in this and the succeeding passage,
which, however, we have not the space to
copy.
She then grapples at once with the car
les, and braycly 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 blasphemy by
these pretentious writer's, but every friend
Of living art and the education Of the peo-
pie in art will be glad to see her assail the
idol which they worship so devoutly.
She says
n "High art means, as nearly as we can
make it out, what professed artists and
instructed people, who understand the tee.
hnical properties Of art and the technical
difficulties to be overcome in it, consider
as interesting and valuable. 1t also
means what past ages have liked and en-.
joyed, and things that are historically IN.
teresting, as the record of the modes Of
thinking and feeling on such subjects in
past ages. Now, many of the best records
of these in cast engravings are not suited
to family life, but ought to be kept in mu.
seums and portfolios The admirable en-.
cravings Of old blind Belisarius is chez
d'eurre Of engraving art, a touching and
tragic picture, but who wishes at all hours
to be confronted by the image Of blind
father with son bitten by serpent il
his arms, however well represented. TIL.
better the representation Of sach a picture
the ao0yye it makes it for home picture
Hung in a sleeping room, this work of arr
might give bad dreams and a possible
nightmare and it had better be kept il
u portfolio and admired when the subject
of proof-engravings is up. If person
should be so fortunate or unfortunate a,
to get capital photograph of the frs
draft of that bloody-bones picture, Mich
acl ngolo's Last Judgment where the
Judge looks like prize fighter in pas
sion, shaking his fist at his mother, such ;
sketch might have certain value as 'higl
art for there is abundance Of high art il
this very disagreable picture, butwe shoe
earnestly recommend him not to frame i
, and hang it up for the terror Of his wife
, and the bad dreams of his innocent babes.
Mrs. Stowe then lays down her Grst rule
for the selection Of home pictures, which
is as excellent as it is heterodox:
GAS general thing she says, "wha
} is not high art, but only respectable ant
permissible art, is the best company 70
f every day family. As we should no
think it amusing to have Satan's Spcecl
to the Sun recited at our breakfast table
/ no neither should we think Scheffer's pic
!, ture Of Francisco di Rimini proper thin,
! to be forever talking to us from the wall
| of our parlors or bedrooms"
She would not have all pictures mer
! prettinesses she would have some repres
} ent the higher side of our nature bu
such solemn and grand subjects should no
, be conspicuously placed in reception
: rooms or parts of the house where tn
s mere surfacc-intercourse of life goes OIL
!, She then adds;
r Pretty genre pictures, such as Pran
$ is getting up 50 many ef, have q certai
y value as house ornaments quite indeper