The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-09

| be proud of at leaet we neeu hVU '.S ~,
look at. This is especially the case witn tne
| later works about the Senate OhAiuVei' an" !"
the old hall Of the House.
THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT.
| coo that An effort is being made to com
plete the so-oalled washington monument
| here. l hope this will fail. The design,
t.Len from a walking stick stuck in pump.
kin. has caused more laughter and curses
than even the Lincoln monument. II the
shaft could be run up, not to the height
originally designed, but to its just proportion.
IL would do; and lovers of art will be graft
fed to see an appropriation made for such
purpose.
This straining after originality on the part
of uncultivated workers in stone and bronzs
is painful. The range of monumental design,
when prescribed by good taste and cultivated
knowledge of the art, is limited. Let any one
open book devoted to this subject and he
will be astonished to find how monuments
repeat each other. We pass from obelisk to
pillar, from pillar to altar, from altar to arch,
and return over the same ground. Bat it is
monstrous for us, possessing such world-re-
nowned artists as Powers, Rogers, aud dozen
others, to be wasting our money and shocking
good taste, by patronizing unskilled and pre-
sumptuous laborers.
THE RoTUNDA.
Under the beautiful dome OF the Capitol
one suffers the sharpest attack of disgust
called historical paintings that would scarcely.
pass creditably as panorama in a country
town. The shin pieces, as Randolph stigma
tized TrumbulPs series, are claimed to be
valuable as historical relics, and as such
should be carefully removed to the Smithso-
nian institute, where are to be found General
WsshiDgtons small clothes. Certainly the
scenes are poorly executed, and If the
faces are, as claimed, q correct likeness,
the worthy old patriots of the revolution
must have been run in the same mould.
1t from these We pass to the later efforts,
we find in one instance only any improvement.
l do not know whether the "Em barkation of
the Pilgrims" would be so charming if exhi-
bited by itself, or seen surrounded by other
good paintings, but iu this circle of helpless
mediocrlty and pTetentious ignorance, one
hastens TO and fingers delighted before it. The
story is told with charming effect. The beauty,
grace, finish, land life parts of the real fact,
that we feel going on before us.
We can find something to criticize in the
Landing of Columbus" or the Baptism of
Pocahontas." The poor artists with feeble
imaginatiOns have Upretendingly done their
work, aud gone their ways, and we 60 ours
with no memory of their little efforts. This
cannot be said of Powells "De Soto Discover
ing the Mississippi" 1t makes upon us a
violent assault. We cannot escape it If we
would. The coloring, grouping, and drawing
make us feel for penknife or look about for
stones. The pretentious painter Of historical
subjects excites the combative. We are
haunted by a monstrosty. The artist sought
to give us De Soto discovering the Mississippi,
and he strangely leaves out De Soto and the
Mississippi. We look in vain for either. In
their steads we have brevet brigadier-gene-
raj in new uniform, on fat, sleek war
horse, in a pictorial state of paving and
snortipg. How the horse and rider got to the
Mississippi, other than through the special in
position of Providence, bothers US, unless we
take the solution offered by the artist. The
Mississippi is not there.
The great fact, and the one we want, could
not get into the little mind of the little artist.
We ask for the indomitable explorer, worn
| out by hard usage and an unbroken wilder
ness, looking at the iul and sea, sweeping down
through melancholy V lids to the Gulf.
For this atrOcious caricature our Govern
ment paid twenty five thousand dollars, and,
after twelve years of jeers and laughter, the
same Government gives commission to the
same artist to paint another csricature, for the
| further sum of twenty five thousand dollars,
and this, too, with the evidence before it that
the artist is W. II. Powell and none other.
When he came here to hang about the lob
! bies and buttonhole members of Congress, to
the shame and disgust of all true artists, who
will starve in their studios rather than beg for
patronage, he brought with him the unhappy
painting now at Columbus, called "Perry's
! Victory" In this Perry is omitted, as was
De Soto. In place of the gallant sailor,
swinging himself from the sinking vessel to
the open boat, begrimed with powder and
stained with blood, showing in his face only
an anxiety to suatoh victory from the jaws of
defeat, we have the BLACK Avenger of the
Spsnish MAN," in melodramatic attitude
and superb uniform, defying the British lion
in an open boat.
My subject carries me beyond my prescribed
limit. We need here the revival Of commits
sion that once existed, made up OF gentlemen
of taste, to serve without compensation, whose
consent was necessary before work could be
accepted. A commission made up such gen.
tiemen as Mr.. Joseph Longworth of Cincin-
natl, Mr.. Belmont OF New York, and Charles
Francis Adams, would savesus money and re-
putation. 1t is hard to realize, and yet it is
the fact, that it calls for as much cultivation,
in its way, to judge correctly of work Of art
as 1t does to create 1t. Members of Congress
are not renowned in this way. But while they
call in experts when required to legislate liz
reference to mechanics, each one feels at home
in art, and will vote away the peoples money
for mOnstrosities that make cultivated people
| eboddar n