Observant visitors to the National Academy of Design will allow that a
tendency to greatness is beginning to develop itself in certain
directions among our artists. In landscape some of them are almost
immense. The works of PORPHYRO warm the walls with rays of splendor, or
cool the lampooned sight-line with pearly gradations, as the case may
be. MANDRAKE renders feelingly the summer uplands and groves, and
SILVERBARK the melancholy autumnal woods. BYTHESEA infuses with
sentiment even the blue wreaths of smoke that curl up from the distant
ridge against which loom the concentrated lovers that he selects for his
idyllic romances. Gushingly he does his work, but thoroughly; and there
are other flowers than lackadaisies to be discerned in his herbage.
GUSTIBUS blows gently the foliage aside, and gives us glimpses through
it of rural contentment in connection with a mill, or some other
interesting object beyond. The pencil of SAGEGREEN imbues canvases, both
large and small, with infinite variety and force; and it is to
SKETCHMORE that the great lakes owe their remarkable reputation as
pieces of water with poems growing out of their broad lily-pads. Very
tender are the pastoral banks and brooksides of LEAFHOPPER. ELFINLOCKS
takes up his pencil, and lo! a hazy, mazy, lazy, dreamy vista where it
has touched. But hold! Our critical Incubus has taken the bit between
her teeth, and is beginning to run away with us. Stop that; and let our
readers enumerate the other first American landscape painters for
themselves.
Not so strong are our artists in domestic incidents and compositions of
life and character. We have STUNNINGTON, to be sure, whose traits of
American expression, whether white or colored, are most true to the
life; and there's BARLEYMOW, who will twist you an eclogue from the tail
of his foreground pig. Others there be; but space has its limits, and we
forbear.
As for our portrait limners, their name is Legion, and that
comprehensive name must go for all. Like BENVENUTO CELLINI they shall be
known for their jugs; and their transmission to posterity on the heads
of families is a thing to be reckoned on as sure.
For the higher flights of art the American painter is by no manner of
means endowed with the wings of his native eagle--wings that agitate the
cerulean vault, spattering it with splashes of creamy cloud-spray, and
churning into butter the stretches of the Milky Way. History has indeed
been illustrated by American art, but has it been enriched? The
WASHINGTONS and the WEBSTERS, the CLAYS and the LINCOLNS, have had their
memories dreadfully lampooned on canvas. Allegory does not inspire the
great American pencil. Tall art there is, and enough of it "at that;"
but of high art we have none to speak of, except the canvases that are
placed over doorways in the galleries of the Academy, and, in the sense
of elevation, may consequently be spoken of as high. All this is wrong.
Alas! that we should write it. Would that we could right it! And to
think of the musty subjects that our historical and allegorical men
select. Ho! young men--away with your CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS; relegate
your METAMORA to his proper limbo; let WASHINGTON alone; and LINCOLN;
and OSCEOLA the Savage; and POCAHONTAS, and all the rest. Leave them
alone; and, taking fresh subjects, dip your brushes in brains, as old
OPIE or somebody else said, and go to work with a will. No fresh
subjects to be had, you say? Bosh! absurd interlocutor that you are.
Here's a bundle of 'em ready cut to hand. We charge you no money for
them, and you may take your choice.