He
has made some copies from Titian, one of which I saw. It was a Madonna and
child, in which the original painting was rendered with all the fidelity
of a mirror. So indisputably was it a Titian, and so free from the
stiffness of a copy, that, as I looked at it, I fully sympathized with
the satisfaction expressed by the artist at having attained the method of
giving with ease the peculiarity of coloring which belongs to Titian's
pictures.
An American landscape painter of high merit is G. L. Brown, now residing
at Florence. He possesses great knowledge of detail, which he knows how to
keep in its place, subduing it, and rendering it subservient to the
general effect. I saw in his studio two or three pictures, in which I
admired his skill in copying the various forms of foliage and other
objects, nor was I less pleased to see that he was not content with this
sort of merit, but, in going back from the foreground, had the art of
passing into that appearance of an infinity of forms and outlines which
the eye meets with in nature. I could not help regretting that one who
copied nature so well, should not prefer to represent her as she appears
in our own fresh and glorious land, instead of living in Italy and
painting Italian landscapes.
To refer again to foreign artists - before I left Florence I visited the
annual exhibition which had been opened in the Academy of the Fine Arts.
There were one or two landscapes reminding me somewhat of Cole's manner,
but greatly inferior, and one or two good portraits, and two or three
indifferent historical pictures. The rest appeared to me decidedly bad;
wretched landscapes; portraits, some of which were absolutely hideous,
stiff, ill-colored, and full of grimace.
Here at Rome, we have an American sculptor of great ability, Henry K.
Brown, who is just beginning to be talked about. He is executing a statue
of Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz, of which the model has been ready
for some months, and is also modelling a figure of Rebecca at the Well.
When I first saw his Ruth I was greatly struck with it, but after visiting
the studios of Wyatt and Gibson, and observing their sleek imitations of
Grecian art, their learned and faultless statues, nymphs or goddesses or
gods of the Greek mythology, it was with infinite pleasure that my eyes
rested again on the figure and face of Ruth, perhaps not inferior in
perfection of form, but certainly informed with a deep human feeling which
I found not in their elaborate works. The artist has chosen the moment in
which Ruth is addressed by Boaz as she stands among the gleaners. He
quoted to me the lines of Keats, on the song of the nightingale -
"Perchance the self-same song that found a path
To the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien's corn."
She is not in tears, but her aspect is that of one who listens in sadness;
her eyes are cast down, and her thoughts are of the home of her youth, in
the land of Moab. Over her left arm hangs a handful of ears of wheat,
which she has gathered from the ground, and her right rests on the drapery
about her bosom. Nothing can be more graceful than her attitude or more
expressive of melancholy sweetness and modesty than her physiognomy. One
of the copies which the artist was executing - there were two of them - is
designed for a gentleman in Albany. Brown will shortly, or I am greatly
mistaken, achieve a high reputation among the sculptors of the time.
Rosseter, an American painter, who has passed six years in Italy, is
engaged on a large picture, the subject of which is taken from the same
portion of Scripture history, and which is intended for the gallery of an
American gentleman. It represents Naomi with her two daughters-in-law,
when "Orpah kissed her, but Ruth clave unto her." The principal figures
are those of the Hebrew matron and Ruth, who have made their simple
preparations for their journey to the land of Israel, while Orpah is
turning sorrowfully away to join a caravan of her country people. This
group is well composed, and there is a fine effect of the rays of the
rising sun on the mountains and rocks of Moab.
At the studio of Lang, a Philadelphia artist, I saw two agreeable
pictures, one of which represents a young woman whom her attendants and
companions are arraying for her bridal. As a companion piece to this, but
not yet finished, he had upon the easel a picture of a beautiful girl,
decked for espousals of a different kind, about to take the veil, and
kneeling in the midst of a crowd of friends and priests, while one of them
is cutting off her glossy and flowing hair. Both pictures are designed for
a Boston gentleman, but a duplicate of the first has already been painted
for the King of Wirtemberg.
Letter XXX.
Buffalo. - Cleveland. - Detroit.
Steamer Oregon, Lake Huron, Off Thunder Bay, _July_ 24, 1846.
As I approached the city of Buffalo the other morning, from the east, I
found myself obliged to confess that much of the beauty of a country is
owing to the season. For twenty or thirty miles before we reached Lake
Erie, the fields of this fertile region looked more and more arid and
sun-scorched, and I could not but contrast their appearance with that of
the neighborhood of New York, where in a district comparatively sterile,
an uncommonly showery season has kept the herbage fresh and deep, and made
the trees heavy with leaves.
