Morning journal and courier., 1892-02-08
MURAL PAINTINGS.

Advance in the Identification of
 Churches-Ecclesias Art fin the
 Reanaissance or the Nineteenth
 Csntury-Heroic Mosaic Figures for
 TabernacIes Of Wership-An De-
 nominations Joining in the Work
 of Decoration.
 One of the curiosities of New York city is little house on the west side of the town, in Carmine street, to wit, whose vo- cation the average New Yorker never could quite comprehend. It was the studio and workshop of two brothers who devoted themselves to the Identification of our churches at time when no artistic evan gelization under the sun could have seemed more hopeless. But the Lambs possessed confidence and courage. They believed that the time was surely coming when public taste would approve of a revival in our forms of worship, of the artistic sur roundings that render the worship of the past beautiful. They were, after their fashions, prophets in the wilderness; but they preached and practiced, undeterred by failure and unconquered by disappoint- ment. Men of original talent and of per feet taate, they worked out of the ecclesi- astical art of the great period an art of their own, which has become part of our moral and physical life.
 From the foundation laid by them has grown up the splsndor with which our churches bedeck the duties which have be- come the more dignifed and noble from the honor they receive. They were work CTS in glass and metal and stone. painters and carvers, inlayers and embroiderers, practicers, in brief, of every art they preached in the service of a great cause. And as time slipped by them and the pub lie taste grew and the public intellig nee broadened their artistic gospel became sig nifcant in it's results as well as in its mean ing.
 The founders of this house are still alive and active after nearly half a century of service, and in their talented children are repeated the gifts of the fathers, with the advantages of technical development the fathers never enjoyed. The house occu- pies, in modern ecclesiastical art, a posi- tion of importance similar to that once held by the Aldusss in the art of book making, and the old studio and workshop, packed with precious and beautiful pro auctions from cellar to roof, still remains landmark of the town in that once re- more quarter which has become a grand artery of the travel of the city, which has outgrown it by the boundaries of many miles.
 In conversation with one of the second generation, who is responsible for most of the designing turned out from this work shop, many of the important changes in modern ecclesiastical art were noted, pri- marily tho introduction of fine art work into denominational churches. I was somewhat astonished to have him tell me that they were now executing a heroic mo- saic figure subject for the Presbyterian church in Cincinnati; it fills the entire al- cove back of the pulpit platform-the sub jsct, that of the Angel of the Resurrec- tion and MRy at the Tomb. It almost offsets the idea of the Bethlehem Presby- terian church in Philadelphia, in which they have one of the largest mural paint | ings in any church in the country; a be- roic mural painting of the Good Shepherd occupying one of the octagon sides of this novel and interesting church.
 The idea that the Presbyterian church is willing to accept not only Biblical subjects in stained glass, which they have done within the last few years, but that they arc willing to ornament their walls with | the best that art can produce in painting
 and mosaic is one of the most positive signs of the times. Of course it is known
 that the Episcopal church and the Roman | Catholic church have always been advo-
 cates of the best forms of ecclesiastical
 art, but the primitive feeling has hereto
 fore existed in our denominstional church
 es, and the use of whitewashed walls and
 of white window glass has taken many
 years to eradicate.
 In answer to the question, "What about the other churches; are they as progress sive e the Presbyterianf" the reply was,