Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1870-09-01
Seiefteo asliseeIIanp.
THE POWER OF A CHILD'S FACE.
BY REV. t. Ds WITT IAIsiAeE

HISS
If lie happen first to look in upon the
picture-gallery of Holyrood, where the
faces of hundred Scottish kings are hung.
his first feeling viii be one of gladness that
they are all dead, for such another villain
ous brood of faces no man ever looked
upon. Such eyes, such mouths, succ
noses, would confound any rogues' gallery
in any city. We believe the whole gallery
a slander by Flemish master, and that
Scotland never had any such afro
cious men or women to rule over her. We
say nothing against homely features in the
abstract Any man has on inaliensble
right to carry such q nose as he will That
Is right pntent on the face of it. Lord
Wellington had hooked nose, and Thack-
cray q turn-up nose, and Robert Bruce 4
nose all over the face: but to have a nose
that looks as if intended to be thrust into
everybody else's business, or to be stuck
MP in scorn, or to blossom with dissipa-
tions, or to snuff at the cause OF virtue
We protest against any mans right to carry
such an infamous proboscis. We are GER
tain that no such looking faces as we see
in Holyrood oaght to have been perpetuated
by q master. Let the extinct species of
such megatheriums never hear the clang of
the crowbar. 1t is not fair that the Royal
College of Surgeons should keep the cancer
of which Napoleon died. There should be
no immortality of cancers.
But no one can forget the place, or the
day, OF the hour, when he first gaZed on a
genuine work Of one of the old masters
We had seen for years pieces of canvas
which pretersed to have come from Italy
or Germany, and to be three or four hun
dred years old. The chief glory Of them
- @lox- bed nd Id
and dull, and iEexplicable, and had great
antiquity of varnish, immensity of daub,
and infnity of botch. The great-granci-
father of the exhibitor got the heirloom
from Portuguese peddler, who was
wrecked at Venice in the middle of the last
century, and went ashore just as one of the
descendants OF the celebrated Braggadocia
Thundergusto, of the fourteenth century,
was hard up for money, and 2lust have o
drink or die.
But / find in my diary this record:
June 30th, 1870, at two o'clock p. M,
in the National Gallery of Scotland, first
saw Titan
July 9Th, 1870, at ten minutes of three
O'Clock, IN the National Gallery of England,
first saw 'Nurillo.'
It seemed to require a sacred subject to
call out the genius of the old masters. On
secular themes they often fail. They
knew not, rs do the moderns, how to pluck
up plant from the earth and make it live
on canvas, Delmonlco, for the adornment
OF shoulder oE bacon, with his knife cuts
out OF a red beet a rose more natural than
the fOIget-me-not Of old Sigismond Hol-
bein, or the lily by Lo Spa1na- Their bat
tie pieces are Cincinnati isisughter-house.
Their cupid scenes are merely nursery OF
babies that rush out from the bath-tub
into TIE hail before their mother has time
to dress them. The masters failed with
fiddle. but shook the earth with diapason.
Give them a ..Crucifxion," or ''Judg-
ment," and they triumph.
Indeed, when men paint or write or act
from the heart, they are potent. BY the
time that thought, starting from the ar
fists brain, IAN come down through the
neck into the shoulder, and through the
right arm TO the fingers, and off the finger
tips to the point of the pencil, 1t has lost
its ID Smentum, and languishes on ths can
vas; but thought that starts from the
brain, and streams to the heart. there to be
taken with strong throb, and as by the
stroke of a piston. forced through the arm
to the canvas. arrives unspent and re-
doubled. The old masters succeeded not
in depicting what they thought SO well as
in what they felt Thoughts are often
hard, and green, and tough. till the warm
sunshine of the heart ripens them.
Most of the ancient artists tried their
hand at the Virgin and the Child, always
eviderciIg their own nationality in the
tyle of infantile beauty selected. The
Dutch school gives Dutch child, the Ro-
man school q Romal child, the Spanish
school Spanish child. Ruben's Christ
was not born at Bethlehem, but at Ant
werp. And as parents are not apt to un-
dervalue their children, it is probable that
they took the model which sat In their own
NURSERY, gathering around it their own
ideal of the infant Jesus. Francesca Tao
conf represents the Holy Child as very
thoughtful, young philosopher
at one year OF age, with
very red hair. vivarini gives rs startled
child. Duccio paints for us child wrap
ped up in admiration of its mother. But
Lo Spagna gives us the look Of glad child
that would romp if it were not afraid of
jumping out of the picture. Why not a
glad child? The burdens had not yet
rolled over on him. Those were good days
TO him. Joseph and Mary walked and
trudged. but be always had soft carriage
to ride in-that of his mothers bosom. He
had enough to wear, for he was wrapped
In swaddling clothes. He probably had
enough 10 eat, for mothers IN those days
were not pinched to death with corsets, and
so the child need not go outside ofits moth
er's arms for abundant supply.
But any pleasant afternoon when the
children OF New York are out taking an air
ing, could find score of infant faces
more like Jesus than any have seen on
ancient canvas. Perhaps, after q while, an
American artist will give rs the Virgin and
the Child. 1t would be more apt to be
impartial than that OF any of ths ancients.
They put their own nationality into the
picture. and it was q German Christ, or
Venetian Christ, or Tuscan Christ; but
the American, having in him the blood of
many lands, and in his face O commingling
of the features of all nations. when he gives
1s upon canvas Mary and .ne Child. it
will be worlds affection bending over
worlds Christ
Not only in the Madonnas, but in nearly
all the chief pictures, the painters show
their liking for children. You see o child
peepine out somewhere. If there is no
other way TO get him into the picture, Paul
Veronese will slide him down in the shape
of a cherub on plank of sunbeams.
You would hardly expect children in
Raphaers "Peter and John Healing the
Lame Man" You expect that the majesty
of the scene viii crowd ont all familiarities
You would shy that children ought to get
out Of the way when such exciting work is
going on. There lies lame man. his hand
In the hand of the apostle. The sufferer
looks up With fsce that has an
guish scorched into every feature; for
though born q CRIPPLE he had never
got used to it. No man that I ever saw
before wanted so much TO get well His
twisted foot no human doctor could
straighten. The muscles That bound it on
the wrong side might have been out, but
the muscles on the other side would not
have drawn it back to the right place.
There lay the helpless, distorted foot
making its dumb prsyer: Yonder is an
other deformed beggar hobbiing up L
Peter Is successful with the first case, this
lame man would like to have his limbs
looked at Still, he is not anxious He is
angry with the world and angry with heav-
en-. His manner seems to say: "Hov
did God dare to make me thus?~
The wretch had been kicked of Of