Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-06-19
"Madonna' at Milan, 0rcagna's Last

pictures, IL they were put In line, Illus
trating, displaying, dramatiZing, IRA
dating Bible truths until the Scrip
lures are not today so much on paper
as on canvas, not so much in ink as in
all the colors of the spectrum. In 1888,
forth from Strassburg, Germany, there
came q child that was to eclipse in
speed and boldness anything and
everything that the world had ever
seen since the first color appeared on
the sky at the creation, Paul Gustave
Dore. At IL years Of age he published
marvellous Autographs of his own. Say
ing nothing of what he did for Millions
Paradise Lost" emblazoning 1t on
the attention of the world, he takes up
the book of books, the monarch of
literature, the Bible, and in his pic
lures, 1.-THE Creation of Light" ''The
Trial of Abraham's Faith" 1.-THE
Burial of Sarah" Joseph Sold by His
Brethren" "The Brazen Serpent"
''Boaz and Ruth" David and Co
liath," 1.-THE TRANSPORTATION" ''The
Marriage In Cana" Babylon Fallen"
and 2O5 Scriptural scenes in all, with
a holiness and a grasp and almost SUI
pernatural aff1atus that make the heart
thrOb and the brain reel and the tears
start and the cheeks blanch and the
entire nature quake with the tremen-
dous things of God and eternity and the
dead. I actually staggered down the
steps of the London Art gallery under
the power of Dore's "Christ Leaving
the Praetorium." Profess you to be
Christian man or woman and see no
divine mission in art and acknowledge
you no obligation either in thanks to
God or man!
Arts Divine Mission.
1t is no more the word Of God when
put before us in printers ink than by
skillful laying on of colors or designs
on metal through incision or corrOSiOn.
What lesson In morals was presented
by Hogarth, the painter, in his two
pictures, '"The Rake's Progress" and
'"The Miser's Feast" and by Thomas
Coles engravings Of the voyage of
Human Life" and the course of EN-
pire," and by Turner's "Slave Ship"
God in art Christ in art! Patri-
archs, prophets and apostles in art!
Angels in arti Heaven in art!
The world and the church ought to
cone to the higher appreciation of the
divine mission of pictures, yet the
authors of them have generally been
left to semistarvation. West, the
great painter, toiled in unappreciation
till, being a great skater, while on the
ice he formed the acquaintance of
General Howe of the English army,
who, through coming to admire West
as a clever skater, gradually came to
as much that which he &C
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 portfolio, which he held
over his head to keep off the stones
hurled at him. The pictures of Rich
ard Wilson Of England were sold for
fabulous sums of money after his
death, but the living painter was glad
to get for his "Alcyone" a piece of
Stilton cheese From 1910 to 1913
there were 1900 pictures willfully de-
stroyed. In the reign of Queen Eliza
beth it was the habit of some people
to spend much Of their time in knock
ing pictures to pieces. In the reign of
Charles l it was ordered by par
lament that all pictures of Christ
be burned. Painters were so badly
treated and Inundated in the begin
ming of the eighteenth century that
they We're lowered clear down out of
the sublimity of their art and obliged
to give accounts of what they did with
their colors. The oldest picture in
a portrait of Chaucer, though
now of great value, was picked out of
a lumber garnet. Great were the trials
of Quentin Matsys, who toiled on from
anvil till, as painter,
he won wide recognition. The first
to Mexico made the fatal
mistake of destroying pictures, for
the loss of which art and religion must
ever lament But why go so far back
when in this year Of our Lord to be a
painter, except in rare occasions,
means poverty and neglect, poorly
fed, poorly clad, poorly housed, be-
cause poorly appreciated?
Value of Art Galleries.
When l hear man is a painter, I
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 been in all
Of noble work. Some Of
the mightiest have been hardly be-
stead. Oliver Goldsmith had such q big
patch on the coat over his left breast
that when he went anywhere he kept
his hat in his hand closely pressed
over the patch. The world renown-
ed Bishop Asbury had salary of $64
a year. Painters are not the only ones
who have endured the lack of appreci-
alton. Let men of wealth take under
their patronage the suffering men Of
art. They lift no complaint; they
make no strike for higher wages. But