The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-23
THE ART MYSTIC.
From the Pan Nal Gazette.

Inere are some prepOsIerOub SnlnBS III bnlS
world, which though,:.we hardly know how to
treat them seriously, yet have about them
some element which checks the feeling of
mirth with which we are at first tempted to
regard them. An exhibition of drawings re-
Gently opened in Bond street. under the title
of esprit Drawings in Water Oolors," is of
this sort. On first entering the room, and
on first opening the catalogue, the inclins-
tion Of any person possessed OF ordinary
powers of perception must be to regard the
whole thing as an outrageous. .absurdity; but
feeling of something almost akin to distress
is not long in succeeding to this first emo
ton, so that the mind of visitor to the ex-
hibition is alternately occupied by sad and
ludicrous images during the whole of his stay
in this gallery of painful absurdities.
The ''spirit drawings in water colors" ex-
hibited at the "New British Gallery" in Old
Bond street are one hundred and fifty-fve in
number, and consist entirely of curves and
fourishes in all sorts of colors, mostly very
bright ones, interspersed with certain threads
of white tracery, of the finest and most elabo-
rate kind, in lines as thin and intricate as the
weavings of a cobweb. In all these one hun
dred and ffty-five drawings there appears to
be no attempt to reproduce distinctly any
object of which mortals have cognizance.
Here and there are certain forms which re-
motely resemble leaves, and now and then
there is family shadowed forth what may be
supposed to represent some unknown fruit
dimly suggestive of ripe fig of BIobdingnag
proportions; but for the most part the draw
ings consist of an infinite variety of curved
lines which, like the tale told by an idiot,
''signify nothing"
What are these "spirit drawings" like !?
They are little like seaweed, little like
feathers, little like an anatomical prepara-
tion in bottle at the College of Surgeons.
They remind one, moreover, of some of the
maddest of William Bakes designs and of
the later whirligigs of Turner. What is most
strange about them, perhaps, is that they are
executed with great show of elaboration, the
curves are drawn with exceeding care, the
colors, which are brilliant in the extreme and
not inharmonious in arrangement, are deli
cately laid on, while over all and interviewer
with all is sort of network of white lines of
the most extraordinary fineness, which remind
one of spun glass and of gossamer, and (tell
it not in GATH ever so little of boiled vermi-
celli.
Judging by the statements contained in the
catalogue published by the artist-a lady
through whose mediumship these drawings
have come into existence, they have each and
all distinct and separate meaning. Thus,
while one will be designated Blossom from
a Spirit Home" another will be entitled the
Monogram of Mrs. Guppy," and yet another,
the Spiritual Grown of the Rev. Richard
Chermside." The spiritual crowns are nume-
rous throughout the collection. Besides those
of her Majesty the Queen and the late Prince
Consort-described at great length in the
catalogue - there are among others the
spiritual crowns of Daniel d. Home, Esq,
and of Miss Houghton herself, the
lady by whose hand-spiritually guided
of course-all these drawings have been
aIo fba ole fo
and fruits of various individuals who are
mentioned by name in the collection. There
is, for instance, tho "Flower of William
Borer," the "Plant of Sidney Alexander
Houghton," and the 'Fruit of Mary War
rand" any one of which might, as it appears
to the uninitiated eye, do duty for either of
the others, or, if need were, for the ''Flower
of William Shakespeare" which in turn
might serve, as it would seem, for that of
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy or Bartolomeo
Esteban Murillo, both of whom are here
represented by means ofEspiritual botany, as
are also 'Franz Anton Mesmer," civilian
Blake, the artist" and most surprising of
jumbles, Archbishop Whateley, of logical
celebrity.
But perhaps the M ost curious feature con
nected with this amazing exhibition is the
mixture of what is practical and common
place with what is sublime and mystical, evil
dence of which meets one at every turn.
The explanatory pamphlet which is sold in
the gallery abounds in such evidence, but no.
where is it displayed in a more comical form
than in the concluding section, in which the
symbolism of color is treated of: list of
colors described by the conventional names
conferred by the artists colorman being
given on one side of the page, with the
qualities of which each tint is supposed to be
symbolical on the other. From this list we
gain much valuable information, learning,
among other things, that yellow ochre repre-.
sents ''delicacy of mind; purple lake, ''powe1
of appreciatlng the great and good in others;
mixed green (gamboge and Prussian blue)
freshness of soul; sepia, ''nursingpowers;" and
brown madder, "adjustingness of mind
age of wonderful discoveries, and surely
''tbese are of them"