The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-07
MONDAY, FEBRUARY Z, 1870.
ART PROSPECTS IN AMERICA.


believe that the Legislature will refuse to pass
the bill incorporating the railroad to be
known as the Schuyllsill River and Augora
Railroad, and thus defeat bold project to
traverse the public domain lately acquired
for the specific purpose of park. On Satur-
day we asserted, as we now reassert,
that the plea Of necessity for running
the aforesaid railroad through the Park, or
indeed in any direction similar to that pro-
posed, is absurd on its face, in view of the
fact that the initial and terminal points of
the road are already connected by
a railroad along the banks of the
Schuylkill. We are rejoiced to
think that the Park, which has already cost
three and a half millions of dollars, and which
offers in its site, famed for the quiet beauty
OF its scenery, advantages that should event
ually make it the first in the world, will escape
this ruthless invasion of its precincts This
subject may be considered disposed of, but it
suggests to us some remarks in the interest
of art as affecting the whole people of our
country.
The poet truly intimstes that by the eyes of
others we obtain of ourselves more Just esti-
mate than our own. Let u.s. then, to see our
selves correctly in matters of art, refer to the
view taken of us by great critic in it, Ruskin,
who, despite his vagaries, has done much for
the world of art. Writing of this country,
some years ago, he said:-"Are you aware that
there Is another form of nostalgia which afflicts
only Europeans, and SO far as I know, is felt
only in one part of the world? Its symptoms
have not hitherto been described, and 1 may
christen it Form-sickness. This Form-sick-
ness begins to attack you after you have re-
sided some time, say couple of months, in
the United States of America. But it's when
you come to dwell in towns that Form-sick-
ness gets its firmest grip of you. In city of
three or four hundred thousand inhabitants
you see nothing but mere fiat surfaces
straight lines, right angles, parallel rows of
boards, and perpendicular palings. 1t is suffi
oient to note the fact that Europeans the
least prejudiced and the most ardent admirers
of the political institutions of the
United States very soon grow fretful
and uneasy there, and are unable
to deny, when they come back, that the
country is not an elegant or a comfortable
one to look upon. I attribute this solely to
mischief lies. 1t is the bran-new mathemati-
cal outline of Columbia that drives the Eng
gishman into Form m-sckness and ultimately
to the disparagement and misrepresentation
of q very noble country. If they would only
round off their corners a little! If they
would only give us few crescents and ovals
in lieu of 'blocks!' If they would only re-
member that the circle as we'll as the rectan-
gle is figure in mathematics, and that the
curvilinear is, after all, the line of beauty
1t is the scorn and the protest of an enthu-
siast in art, levelled against the sometimes
ignorance, sometimes neglect, of all that con-
tributes to charm the sense which, according
to Dr. johnson, and by common experience
and consent, regards its objects longest with
out safety. 1t is striking portraiture of the
result of that purblindness which has at last
begun to perceive glimmering of the truth,
and allowed us to set about remedying the
evil. 1t is less true than when it was written,
and is daily becoming less and less but as a
generalization it is still near enough to the
truth to enlist our serious attention. Recently,
the same author, frenzied by the tendency of
the age, lost his calm judgment, when he cried
from his old Alpine haunts:-'I have seen
strange evil brought upon every scene that
best loved, or triedto make beloved by others
The Light which once flushed those pale sum
mits with its rose at dawn, and purple at sun
set, is now umbered and faint the air which
once inlaid the clefts of all their golden crag
with azure, is now defiled with languid coils o
smoke, belched from worse than volcanic fires
their very glacier waves are ebbing, and thei
SHOWS fading, as if hell had breathed on them
the waters that once sank at their feet int
crystalline rest, are now dimmed and fou
from deep to deep and shore to shore"
This is very midsummer madness: th
happy mean is where Ruskin earlier pinne
his faith. The earth is mans for his physics
as well as his moral welfare; but Ruskin's lov
of tho beautiful would let him starve. W.
on the other hand, with our former indiffel
ence to all but material existence, woul
dwarf the moral stature. The increase with
few years in aesthetic knowledge is ma
vellous. We have produced in literature,
sculpture, in landscape painting, in musi
and in the drama, artists of the first orde
Thousands from our shores yearly visit
Europe the art treasures of centuries, brin
ing back with them the impress of the stud
which is more and more visible in the perce
ton and realization of the beautiful. All tn
remains is that the knowledge and the To-
of art shall pervade the people. The tin
surely is not remote, not more than fif
years, when another Ruslin, looking arouI
upon our land and upon the art glories of