The Penn's Grove record., 1888-11-17

AhtAt ~ SAAS ~
reel and the tears start and the cheeks
blanch and the entire nature quake
with the tremendous things Of God and
eternity and the dead. / actually stag
gered down the steps of the London
Art Gallery, under the power of Dore's
"Christ Leaving the ~Practorium."
Profess you to be a Christian man or
woman, and see no d vine mission in
art. and acknowledge you no obligation
| either in thanks to God or man?
1t is no more the word of God when
pnt before us in printers ink, than by
skilful laying on of colors, or designs
on metal through incision or corrosion.
What a lesson in morals was presented
by Hogarth, the painter, in his two pic
lures, 'The Rake's Progress,n and
"The Miser's Feast" and by Thomas
Coles engrayings of the Voyage of
Human Life, and the "Course Of En-
pire," and by Turner's "Slave Ship"
God in artl Christ in artl Patriarchs,
prophets and apostles In art! Angels
in artl Heaven in arti
NEGLECTED PAINTERS.
The world and the church ought TO
come to the higher appreciation OF the
divine mission of pictures, yet the au-
thors of them have generally been left
to seml-starvation. West, the great
painter toiled in interpretation till, be-
ing'a great skater, while IN the Ice he
formed the acquaintance of General
Howe, of the English army, and through
coming to admire West as q skater.
who gradually came to appre ciate as
much that which he accomplished by
his hand as by his heel. Poussin, the
mighty painter, was pursued, and had
nothing with which to defend himself
against the mob but the artists port
folia, which he held over his head to
keep off the stones hurled at him. The
pictures of Richard Wilson, of Eng
land, were sold for fabulous sums of
money after his death, but the living
painter was glad to get for his "Alcy-
one" a piece of Stilton cheese.
From 1640 to 1913 there were 4,600
pictures wilfully destroyed. In the
reign of Queen Elizabeth it, was the
habit of some people to spend much OF
their time in knocking pictures to
pieces. In the reign Of Charles the
First 1t was ordered BY faxSaiE<s~sse
all pictures of Christ be burnt. Paint
ers were so badly treated and Inundated
in the beginning of the eighteenth cen.
fury that they were lowered clear down
out of the sublimity of their art, and
obliged to give accounts of what they
did with their col0rs, as
PAINTERS BILL
which came to publication in Scotland
in 1907 indicated. The painter had
been touching up some old pictures In
the church, and he sends in this item
lied bill to the vestry: ITO filing up
a chInk in the Red Sea and repairing
the damages to Pharaob's hosts''; ITO
a new pair of hands for Daniel in the
Lions den, and a new set of teeth for
the lioness''; 'to repairing Nebuchad-
nezzar's beard"; ito giving q blush to
the cheek of EH, on presenting the
s sal let to ada Adah s,ms5jf6sfsssh 1 B'r sas
mending one of his legs''; ssto putting |
on a new handle on Moses basket. and
fitting bulrushes, and adding more fuel
to the tire in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS fur
mace" So painters were Inundated
clear down below the majesty Of their
art. The oldest picture in England, a
portrait of Chaucer, though now OF
great value, was picked out of . lumber
garrett. Great were the trials of Quen-
tin Matsys, who toiled on from black
smiths anvil till, as a painter, he won
wide recognition. The first mission
aries to Mexico made the fatal mistake
of destroying pictures. for the loss Of
which art and religion must ever la
ment. But why go SO far back when
in this year of our Lord, 1888, and
within twelve years Of the twentieth
century, TO be a painter, except in rare
exceptions, means
POVERTY AND NEaLECT?.
poorly fed, poorly clad, poorly housed, |
because poorly appreciated When ! /
hear a man IS a painter, / have two
feelings one of admiration for the
greatness of his soul, and the other OF
commiseration for the needs Of his
body.
But so it has benin all departments
of noble work. Some of the mightiest
have been hardly bestead. Oliver Gold
smith had such a big patch ON the coat
over his left breast that when he went
anywhere he kept his hat in his hand
G closely pressed over the patch. The
world-renowned Bishop Asbury had a
salary of S64- a year, Painters are not
the only ones who have endured the
lack of appreciation. Let men Of
wealth take under their patronage the
suffering men of art. They lift no COM
plant; they make no strike for higher
wages. But with a keenness Of nervous |
organization which almost always char i
acterizes genius. these artists suffer
more than any one, but God, can re-
alize. There needs to Pc a concerted
effort for the
SUFFERING ARTISTS OF AMERICA, |
not sentimental discourse about what
we W TO artists, but contracts that
will give them a livelihood; for ! am in
full sympathy with the Christian farm
er who was very busy gathering his fall
apples, and some N askAd him to pray
for a poor family. the father of which
had broken his leg, and the busy farm
er SAID: 81 cannot stop now to pray, |
but you can go down into the cellar
and get some corned beef and butter
and eggs and potatoes; that is all / can
do noW.n Artists may wish for our
prayers, but they also want practical
help from men who can give them
work. You have heard scores of SER
mons for all other kinds of suffering
~
men and women, but / think this Is the
first sermon ever preached that made a
plea for the suffering men and women
OF American art. Their work is more
true to nature and life than any of the
masterpieces that have become immor-
tai on the other side of the sea, but it is
the fashion of Americans TO mention
foreign artists, and to know little or
nothing about our own Copley, and
Allston, and Inman, and Greenough, |
and Kensett. Let the afiluent fling out
of their windows and into the back
yard ~valueless daubs on canvas, and
call in these splendid but unrewarded
men, and tell them to adorn your walls,
not only with that which shall please
the taste, but enlarge the mind, and i'm.
prove the morals, and saw the souls Of
those who gaze upon them.
AS the day of the Lord Of Hosts, ac-
cording to this text, will scrutinize the
pictures, l implore all parents to see that
in their households they have neither in
book or newspaper or on canvass any