Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1888-11-08
ON PICTURES.
,WhattIe Rev. DIR. Talmage has 10 Say
About Painting and Other Works
of Art.

epooyIYY. Oct. 2s.-The subject OF Ut
.,m.ao,s discourse was 'The Divine MIS-
aseo ID Pictures. His text was Isaiah, IN. =,
na4ts III the 18th and 10th verses-"The way
kXkfbe Lord OF Hosts shall be upon al pieas
kahf pictures He said;
Pictures are by some relegatcd TO ene
realm osths trivial, accidental,
or Worldly, but my text shows thao ="
serutinizes pictures, and whether they are
good or bad, whether used for ngls of
wrong purposes, is a matter OF divine opser-
walton and ~arraignment.
The divine mission of pictures is my sud-
ject.
That the artists pencil and the engravers
knife have sometimes been made subservieht,
to the kingdom ofthe bad is frankly admloteu'
After the ashes and seoria were removed lro"
Herculaneum and Pompeii the walls oil those
cities discovered to the explorers a degfada
tiou in art which cannot be exaggerated
Satan and all his imps have always
wanted the lingering Of the easel; they wop'd
rather have possession OF that tnah
the art of printing. for types are not so po-
tent and Quick for evil as pictures. Inc
movers of darkness think they have gal ned a
triumph, aud they have, when in some re-
spectacle parIor or public gallery they can
hang a canvass embarrassing to the good,
but fascinating to the evil.
1t is not in the spirit of p~rudery, but back
cd up by Gods eternal truth when say
that you have no right to hang IN your arr
rooms or dwelling houses that which would
be offensive to good people If the figures were
alive in your parlor and the guests oil your
household. A picture hat you have TO hang
in a somewhat secluded place, or that IN q
public hall you cannot with q group oil
friends deliberately stand before ana
discuss, ought to have a khhe
stabbed into it at the top n cut
through to the bottom, and a stout hnGer
thrust in on the right side ripping clear
through To the left. Pliny, the elder, lost ms
| life by going near enough to see the INSIDE
of Vesuvius, and the further you can stand
| of rom the burning crater OF SIN, the better.
1 Never till the books of the last gay nre
opened shall we know what has beer the dire
harvest of evil pictorials and unbecomlHg art
galleries. Despoil a mans Imagination anu
he becomes q moral carcass. The snow
| windows of English and American cities IN
which the low theaters have sometimes hung
long lines of brazen actors and actresses IN
styles insulting to all propriety nave mace
a broad path to death for multitudes OF
peopIe. But SO nave all the other arts been
at times suborned Of evil.
How has music been bedraggledl Is there
any place so low down in dessoluteness tDat
into it has not been carried DaYids
harp, Handles organ. and Gottschalks
niano and Ole Bulls violin; and
1 n. n,Ao ,pbt,h fhn,0h named alter
| SO Insignificant a thing as the Sicilian eel,
which has seven spots on the side like flute
| holes, vet for thousands of years has had an
exalted mission. Architecture, born IN the
heart OF Him who made the worlds, under
it's arches and across its floors what bac'
| chanalian ~reyelries have been enacted IL is
not against any of these arts that they nave
\ been SO Jed into captivity. What a poor
! world tiis would be If we're not for what my
text rails pleasant pieturesi' L refer TO
your knowledge of the Holy Scriptures has
not been mighty augmented by the Wood
s Sn;sS Or f Spgray aaS a y ~ pead ia oat Of h' aHd
laid on the table n old homestead
when You were boys 5sud sirls. The Bible
SSSne so gfaSn from Id Bible typology, bnt
from the Bible AIIPeeares- To prove
the truth oft innf re the other gay
her sGsf e sur " w
in my nina n {Sfs iea
Samseaeal4yfaE 81 o. kzE&t
hestaring tho s~Hanamite's esas a44tcFe
Of the innosenks, fhrist bfesslogf <<&rAifdrehs
tho c~fueifsion and the last ua4fqcEt My
idea of at thfse is that of theF1IBLbleen-
cravings Which | scanned befor6 Ec5aM rcad
a word. That is true with ninsStenths o
you. II / could swing opensthe door OF your
foreheads / would find that you ~areswalking
picture galleries.
The great intelligence abroad about the
Bible did not come from the general reading
of the book, for the majority of the people
read it but little, il they read it at all; but all
the. sacred scenes have been put before the
great masses, and not printers ink, but the
pictorial art must have. the credit of the
achievement. First, painters pencil for the
favored few, and then ~engrayer's plate or
woodcut for millionsl What overwhelming
commentary on the Bible, what reinforce
melt for patriarchs, prophets, apostles and
Christ, what distribution OF Scripture knowl-
edge of all nations in the paintings and en-
cravings therefrom Of Hunts Christ
in the Temple" Paul Voronese's "Magdalen
Washing the Feet of Christi" Raphael's
Michael, the Arehangel;'' Albert Durer's
dragon ofthe Apocalypse Michael Angeles
plague of the Fiery S%erpents;" Tintoret's
Flight into Egypt" Rubens' Descent from
the Cross" Leonardo na Vinci's Last Sup
per; CIaude's Queen ofSheba;" Bellinis MA
1 Gonna Oh hltNns Ofc9R0a LaSb JudR-
ment !" and hundreds of miles of pictures if
they were put in line, illustrating, displaying,
dramatizing, Graduating Bible truths until
the Scriptures are to-day so much on paper
as on canvass not so much On ink as in all
the colcrs of the spectrum. In 1888 forth
from Strasbprg, Germany, there came a child
that was to eclipse in speed and boldness
and grandeur anything and everything that
the world had seen since the first color
appeared on the sky ut the creation, Paul
Gustav Dors. At eleven years of age
he published marvellous lithogra phs OF
himself. Saying nothing of what he
did for Milton's Paradise Lost"
emblazoning it on the attention of the
world, he takes up the Book of Books. the
monarch of literature, the Bible, and in his
Trial of Abraham'ss Faith" "rhe Burial
of Sarah" Joseph Sold by His Brethren"
The Brazen Serpent" "Boaz and Ruth"
ton" 1.-THE Marriage in Cana" Baby
Ion Fallen" and $50 Seriptural scenes in all,
with a boldness and a grasp and almost SUI
pernatural aflatus that make the heart
throb, and the brain reel, and the tears
start, and the the cheeks blanche andethe
entire nature quake with the tremendous
things of God and eternity and the dead. |
actually staggered down the stefs of the
London art gallery under the powefo Of Dore's
Christ leaving the Praetorium." Profess
you to be Christian man OF woman. and seen
divine mission in AT aud A~ekflowledSe YOU
no Obligation sther in thapks. to God or
m0n2,
les no more. the word Of God when mt he.
loress tke printer ink than by skillfullylay-
ing on. ofcolors, or designs on mental through
ineisiop or corrosion. What n lesson in mo
rale Was presented by Hogarth, the painter,
in lbs two pictures, The Rake's Progress, -
and the "Miser's FEAST n by Thomas
Coles engravings of the "Voyage of Human
Life" and the Course of Empire and bv
Turner's Slave Ship God in artl Christ
in art; Patriarchs, prophets and apostles in
art Angels in art. heaven in artl
The world and the church ought to come
10 the higher appreciation of the divine mis-.
sions of pictures, yet the authors of them
have generally been left to se~mi-starvation,
west, the great painter, toiied in unappreci.
atom TIL, being a great skater, while on the
ice he formed the acquaintance of Gen,
Howe of the British army, and through
coming to admire West as a skater. thcy
gradually came to appreciate as much thai
which he accomplished by his hand as by his
heel. Poussin, the mighty painter, was pur.
sued, and had nothing with which to defend
himself against the mob but the artists
pottfoiho, which he held over his head 10
keep OF the stones hurled at him, Tbe
pictures of Richard Wilson, of England, sold
Tor fabulous sums of money after his death
but the living painter was glad to get for his
HAlcyone a piece Of Stiltou cheese. From
k16lQta 1913 there were 1900 pictures will.
funy destroyed, In the reign of Queen Eliza:
beth 1t was the habit OF some people to spepd
nueh-a their time in knocking pictures ID
Risces In the reign of Charles the First II
was ordered by parliament that all pictures
of Christ be burnt.
g Painters were so badly treated and humili.
ated in the beginning of the 18th century