256 FRENCH REALISM. Sister of Charity, with the dramatic vigor and obtrusive individualism of Darley's drawings, which are the strongest and best productions of realism, in their special direction, that our school has to show. Both Billings and Darley draw in a masterly manner, but on what different keys of design! Grace guides one pencil, force the other. Darley in design and John Rogers in sculpture are akin in power of expression. For a final comparison we would suggest that our readers should look at the thin, positive-colored, tableau-like compositions of the academic-trained and impatient Leutze, and then turn to the miniature illustrative paintings of Vedder, like the Roc's Egg and Jinnee, and note well their brilliant but harmonious coloring, finished detail, breadth of treatment, dignity and yet vigor of action, well-ordered masses, sense of repose, and solid beauty, and, above -all, their mental suggestiveness, every stroke of the brush betraying definite intent, and all tending to unity of idea and execution. If we look at our painting as a whole, we find, that, though indebted in many respects to the French school, it has some characteristics more promising than those of its master. The French manner is too intellectual, too realistic, too little spiritual and idealistic, wanting also in passion and the language of color. Delacroix is exceptional, and not to be cited against this view. He was unrecognized in his time, and even now has no positive influence, though a giant of original force and vehemence. Indeed, his nature was too deep and intense to mix with the natures AMERICAN COLOR. 257 about him. A fresh revelation he is and will ever remain. So we cannot cite him, nor can we the Englishman Turner, as evidence of general qualities. Such men serve rather to show the lack of generic virtues than the presence of them. The French school is not one of powerful color, like that of Venice, or the Spanish. Its chief defect, aside from spirituality, is in this direction. Its color is more the result of scientific calculation than of feeling or instinct. Now, American art, though in intellectual knowledge and technical ability so greatly behind it, has actually given hints of ideas, in Story's Sibyl and Ward's Freedman, that belong to and express thoughts of the living nineteenth century. Imperialism in France will not permit art to become the language of social and political hopes and aspirations. But there is no reason why the art of democratic America shall not. What lessons might not be taught out of the demoniac passions that give birth to New York riots, if their true origin, spirit, and intent were exhibited realistically or symbolically! What, also, of the wider view of the duties of humanity which is coming to the surface of men's consciences in the present struggle of the powers of light against the powers of darkness! But, setting aside lofty motives, we have better promise of a genuine, original school of color than any other nation. On looking at Allston, Babcock, Hunt, La Farge, Inness, and Vedder, it really seems as if the mantle of Venice had fallen upon America, and the far-off New World was about to revive the de 258 THE TRANSITION PERIOD. parted glories of the Old. Possessing the burning language of poets and prophets, we await their full prophetic utterance. No nation can turn to a more heroic or grander record of sacrifice, suffering, and triumph. We are now passing through the transition period of unformed youth, with its raw impulses, weak compromises, and hasty decisions, into the fuller wisdom of ripe manhood, tried by an ordeal of the greatest civil war the earth has ever seen, and for the greatest ideas and largest liberty to the human race. Ours is the victory for all humanity. Out of this war for equality, exaltation, and unity of peoples, must spring up a school of art of corresponding nobleness. The people's Future is its field. A great work is before it. Little is done, nothing, compared to what there is to do. But slight as is the showing of our art in a national sense, it still precedes the popular taste. Art awaits a valid public opinion to inspire it, and to be amenable to. The common taste rests upon the level of materialistic landscape. It is just expanding into a liking for - dead game and ordinary genre subjects. To it, the sublime, impassioned, or spiritual, is an unknown tongue. It has not even learned the true definition of art, much less comprehended its entire spirit and purpose. There is a crude liking of prettiness, mistaken for beauty, but no deep conviction of our æsthetic poverty, still less any such fixed faith in art as we have in science. Art itself has not grown into a faith. It aspires overmuch to dollars and praise. Although lead GOLDEN LIGHT. 259 ing public taste, it stoops to it. Knowing the right, it hints at better things, but hesitates to do them. It wants backbone; has no lofty conception and belief in its own future. But, full of young blood, the dawn of its morning twilight tinges the horizon with far-off golden light. The American School of Sculpture. - Its Origin. - Greenough. Modern Motives. - Sculpture as a Trade. - Clark Mills; Powers; Crawford; Dexter; King. - Chantrey's Washington. Our Portrait - Statues. Those of the Ancients. Randolf Rogers. - The Gates of Paradise, of the Capitol. Ball; Brown; Harriet Hosmer; Miss Stebbins; John Rogers; Dr. Rimmer; Paul Akers; Palmer; William Story; Ward. Conclusion. N the progress of civilization sculpture But in We had eminent painters before a sculptor appeared. Such sculpture as we possess is the work of the present | generation. All remember with what naïve surprise and fastidious delicacy, scarcely a score of years ago, the Chanting Cherubs of Greenough were greeted. A marble figure by an American was in itself strange and curious. At that time we had so vague a notion of æsthetic enjoyment that even the cold purity of marble could not protect these little children from the reproach of immodesty, or secure to them any higher interest than would have been given to a Japanese mermaid. They were simply interesting as the work of a countryman in a profession of doubtful utility; if favored at all, to show that |