Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-04-15
Vermont Painters,

The New York Evening Post of the 10th
refers in its notice of the Spring Exhibi.
ton of the National Academy of Design
to Julian SCOTS contribution as 60 a finely
painted picture Of the deck of the Hart.
ford; with portrait ofAdmiral Farragut; =
md gives in its list of pictures in the West
Room. 1.-The lVillage Post-Office' a
painting of great beauty and interest by
[. W. Wood" On the other hand the
New York 7fi6une's critic speaks unfavor-
ably of Mr.. Woods painting.
The West Room is rather dull this year.
vet there are some pictures in it that ar,
worth looking at. The two pictures of
| most pretension are 1.-The Village Post
Office" by T. W. Wood and The Con.
fessional," by John F. Weir. But neitbe,
Of these will add much to the reputation
Of its author. Mr.. Wood has not skill
nough in drawing the figure, nor knowl
edge enough of human nature, to fill as
large canvas as this with matter NJ
nee pleasant and profitable to stu DIV
The artist must bring to the reproduction
OF such scene either learned drawing. or
beautiful color, or striking light and shade
or the play of human character. some
thing artistic or poetic-in short, to max,
rs willing to stand at the door of coun-
ry store and look in upon what is doing
there. This Is SO evident that it would
hardly be worth saying, if it were not tina,
20 many people think that to paint a mat
ter-of-fact copy of a matter-of-fact place.
is to paint picture. Such a Performance,
us no more necessarily a picture than
groups of lines properly divided into feet
and furnished at the ends with rlymine
syllables are necessarily a poem. Null
ready paints two very ordinary people in
a shop buying wedding-go gown, but he
brings such skill to bear in painting the
furniture and furnishings of the shop
the end of the counter is so cleverlv
painted that you can see it is only grain
ed to look like mahogany ,)-that, mere
~ us Il piece of cXecution-:l bit of scien-
titic record we may almost call it-people
will take pleasure in looking at the pic
ture as long as it exists. And, to come
nearer home, our own Winslow HomeI
painted, last year, a country store in Yer
mont, with some village bows loungino
about the stove on Il rainy day, and dog
asleep in the foreground, that showed bet
ter than we can explain with words how
any humblest passage of our wOrk-;I-day
world is text enough for the poet and the
artist. Mr.. Wood has painted some clever
pictures that have made him favorite
with good many people, but he has hard
~ taken his own measure in this one. We
have looked over it carefully to see if we
could find anything well painted, but we
have not succeeded, and yet Il more i'm
portant defect is that the people are so
little alive. The best point is the boy
cIsting .sheep's-eyek at the girl reaching up
for a letter. His face is well hit, anu
thows what Mr.. Wood might do if he
could be content to keep to the single tig
ures, or groups of two or three, by which |
he made his reputation"
Now we don't know much about paint /
ing, but e logic is logic " and how this cri- /
tic can commend a "bit of scientific re-
cord in one man and condemn realism |
in another We don't see-unless perchance |
here is a mystery of - learned drawing
II the one that isn't in the other. What |
skill in painting furniture and furnishings |
here can be unless it is painting them rs
hey are We don t see, and this is what Is /
condemned in Mr.. Woods case. What /
he IribHHc'S critic seems To want is Il
Village Post-Office As it might, could.
would or should be, which is a very lauda-
Die desire, but that is not what Mr. Wood .
undertook to paint He has simply paint
ID the TRUTH thing which city critic is
liable TO know as little OF a. We do OF
painting.