Year: 1870

engravings is up. If person should
| be so fortunate or unfortunate as to
get capital photograph of the first
draft of that bloody bones picture,
! 'Micheal Angeles Last Judgment
| where the Judge looks like a prise
| tighter in passion, shaking his fist
at his mOther,-such q sketch might
have a certain value as high art for
there is abundance of high art in this
very disagreeable picture; but we
should earnestly recommend him not
/ to frame it and hang it up for the ter
ror of his wife and the bad dreams of
| his innocent babes"


Mrs. Stowe then lays down her first
rule for the selection of home pictures,
which is as excellent as It is heter-
odox:-


AS a general thing" she says,


what is not high art, but only re-
| spectacle and permissible art, is the
best company for everyday family
! life. AS we should not think it
amusing to have Satan's Speech to
the Sun reeited at our breakfast table,
so neither should we think Scheffer 8
| picture of Francisco di Rimini a pro-
per thing to be forever talking to us
from the walls of our parloTs and bed
rooms"


She would not have all pictures
mere prettinesses; she would have
some represent the higher side of our
nature; but such solemn and grand
| subjects should not be consDicuOusly
placed in receptiOn-rOOms, or parts of
| the house where the mere suTface-in-
| tercOurse of life goes on. She then
adds,-


"Pretty genre pictures, such as
Prang is getting up so many of, have
a certain value as house ornaments
quite Independent of considerations
| of high art. A red cashmere shawl
caTelessly thrown down on a garnet
cOlOred sofa, with q CLEAN of sunshine
! across it, often forms bit of cOlOring
| that turns room into q picture. So
| Prang's overturned basket of bright
red cherries, hung on wall of a pro-
per tint, is a pleasing bit Of COLOR
! pleasing because it attempts not too
much, and does all it attempts well.
| So, also, piOus notices and texts in
| Illuminated letters havea double val
ue,-they ornament and they teach.
! These have no value one way or the
other as art; but they are very pleas
ant and useful as household Orna-
/ ments-"


Mrs. Stowe then teaches the alpha
bet of all true culture, ,-self-reliance,
and courage to reject the advice of
others, however pretentiOus, when


their dictG are at utter variance with


ones own impressions. OF course,


this does not imply unteachableness


it only demands a reason for the faith


profferred to us. She says


1.-THE great value of pictures for


home should be, after all, in their


sentiment. They shuld express sin


cere ideas and tastes of the household,
and not the tyrannical dictd of some


art critic or neighbOr. 1t is desirable


that the drawing and painting should


be good and respectable, and that the


family should be we'll enough inform


ed to know that picture painted on


a japanned waiter, however smooth
and pretty, is not a good picture sim
! ply because it is smooth and pretty.


We should try to cultivate our taste,
and then try to express it; but the
| value of family pictures in q great
degree should consist in the fact that
they do sincerely represent our own
tastes and preferences, and not those
of others. 1t is desirable that these
should be cultured tastes, but quite as
much so that they be real and gen.
uine. A respectable engraving, that
truly is felt by the family as an artis-
| tic pleasure, is q better thing for them
than a much higher one that they do
not understand or care for"


4 = Ns1gs.
ly icOnoclastic; "The Nation, " which
has sneered at almost all our best
men, will give its aesthetic lips an
extra curl when it reads this passage.
Following out this thought, Mrs.
Stowe cOmmends all self-selected col
lections, whether they be those of q
cOnnoisseur with only classical engra-
ings on the walls, or those of some
pains-taking business man, and his
plain, excellent, housekeeping wife,
to whom, ''and it is neither sorrow
nor shame to say it, " "a genuine pic
ture of smiling baby, good dog, a
! fine horse, a bunch of flowers, are
worth the whole Vatican"


There is a world of sound art-cFiti-
cism as we'll as common sense and
genial feeling in this passage, with
which we shall close our eXtracts:-


"Can there be but one sort of thing
in this world and is not a tuft of
moss, in its way as good as an oak
tree? Is it any sin not to have been
to Rome and lived. or any merit to
have done so? If your neighbOr is
STEPPED to the lips in high art and
so classical that his very chairs ages
of good authority for his pattern, let
us not despise him therefore; and let
him not. snub and predominant over
his brother, who has got only so far
as a sincere admiration for the pretty
things the Lord makes, when gen
timely represented. Hast thou faith?
Have it to thyself. Applaud and glQ-
rify thy own collection with a fun
heart, but be gentle to thy neXt-dOOr
neighbor who eateth only herbs.


There are certain humble walks Of
art in which excellence consists sim
ply in a faithful and truthful repre-
sentatiOn of nature, in which the
excellence is of kind of which COM
mon people can become good judges.
It takes very little artistic skill or
sense to Judge whether a stalk of blue
gentian is faithfully painted, or the
copy of a bunch of apple-blOssOms is
true to the model of its great original.
A host of such simple, inexpensive
ornaments are given by Prang in his
chrOmO-lithOgraphy. a bunch of ap-
ple-blOssoms, a blue gentian, so repre-
sented as to excel average painting,
forms a domestic ornament, unpre-
tending, unambitiOus, and always
beautiful. Never do our hearts cease
to thrill when the time of year comes
round for their fair originals to smile
on US, and never can we lose the sense
of beauty in their limitations.


at is one of the signs of the mil
lennium that real good art, correct
and pure so far as it goes, is being
made the inheritance of the million,
as it is now being done by the chrO-
mo lithOgraph; and we have little
sympathy with the scOFnful style i'm
which some self-impOrtant art-eritics
have condemned or ridieuled efforts
that are bringing beauty and pleasure
to so many thousand homes that