The Catholic World Volume I Part 59

From The Month.

A LOST CHAPTER OF CHURCH HISTORY RECOVERED.

BY JAMES SPENCER NORTHCOTE, D.D.

If we set before a skilful professor of comparative anatomy a few bones dug out of the bowels of the earth, he will re-construct for us the whole form of the animal to which they belonged; and it sometimes happens that these theoretical constructions are singularly justified by later discoveries. It is the province of an archaeologian to attempt something of the same kind. A historian transcribes for our use annals more or less fully composed and faithfully transmitted by his predecessors. He may have to gather his materials from various sources; he must distinguish the true from the false; and he gives shape, consistency, and life to the whole; but, for the most part at least, he has little to supply that is new from any resources of his own. The archaeologian, on the contrary, if he be really a man of learning and science, and not a mere collector of old curiosities, aims at discovering and restoring annals that are lost, by means of a careful and intelligent use of every fragment of most heterogeneous materials that happens to come across him. And there is certainly n.o.body in the present age whose talent and industry in this branch of learning, so far at least as _Christian_ archaeology is concerned, can at all compare with that of Cavaliere G. B. de Rossi. For more than twenty years he has devoted himself to the study of the Roman catacombs, and at length we begin to enter upon the fruit of his labors. He has just published (by order of the Pope, and at the expense, we believe, of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology, inst.i.tuted by his Holiness in 1851) the first volume of _Roma Sotteranea_; a magnificent volume, splendidly ill.u.s.trated, and full of new and varied information. An abstract of its contents would hardly be suitable to our pages; but none, we think, can fail to be interested in what we may venture to call _the first chapter_ of the History of the Catacombs--a chapter that had certainly never before been written, even if it had been attempted.

All earlier authors upon subterranean Rome, so far as our experience goes, whilst describing fully, and it may be ill.u.s.trating with considerable learning, the catacombs as they now exist, and all the monuments they {415} contain, have been content to pa.s.s over with a few words of apology and conjecture the question of their origin and early history. They have told us that the Jewish residents in Rome had burial-places of a similar character; and they have shown how natural and probable it was that the first Roman Christians, unwilling to burn their dead in pagan fashion, should have imitated the practices of the ancient people of G.o.d. When pressed to explain how so gigantic a work, as the Roman catacombs undoubtedly are, could have been carried on by the Christians under the very feet of their bitter persecutors, yet without their knowledge, they have pointed to the rare instance of a cemetery entered by a staircase hidden within the recesses of a sand-pit; they have guessed that here or there some Christian patrician, some senator or his wife, may have given up a garden or a vineyard for use as a burial-ground; and then they have pa.s.sed on to the much easier task of enumerating the subterranean chapels, tracing the intricacies of the galleries, or describing the paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions. The work of De Rossi is of a very different character. It begins _ab ovo_, and proceeds scientifically.

It shows not only how these wonderful cemeteries _may_ have been made, but also--as far as is practicable, and a great deal further than nine-tenths even of the most learned archaeologians ever supposed to be practicable--how and when each cemetery really _was_ made. From the few scattered bones, so to speak, which lay buried, and for the most part _broken_, partly in the depths of the catacombs themselves, partly in the Acts of the Martyrs, the Liber Pontificalis, and a few other records of ecclesiastical history, he has reconstructed with consummate skill the complete skeleton, if we should not rather say has reproduced the whole body, and set it full of life and vigor before us. Not that he has indulged in hasty conjectures, or given unlimited scope to a lively imagination; far from it. On the contrary, we fear many of his less learned readers will be disposed to find fault with the slow and deliberate, almost ponderous, method of his progress, and to grow impatient under the ma.s.s of minute criticisms with which some of his pages are filled, and by which he insists upon justifying each step that he takes. Indeed, we have some scruple at presenting our readers with the sum and substance of his argument, divested of all these _pieces justificatives_, as our neighbors would call them, lest they should suspect us of inventing rather than describing. However, we think it is too precious a page of Church history to be lost, and we therefore proceed to publish it, only premising that n.o.body must pretend to judge of its truth merely from the naked abstract of it which we propose to give, but that all who are really interested in the study should examine for themselves in detail the whole ma.s.s of evidence by which, in De Rossi's pages, it is supported, most of which is new, and all newly applied.

To tell our story correctly, it is necessary we should step back into pagan times, and first take a peep at their laws and usages in the matter of burials. No cla.s.sical scholar need be told how strictly prohibited by old Roman law was all intra-mural interment. Indeed every traveller knows that all the great roads leading into Rome were once lined on either side with sepulchral monuments, many of which still remain; and the letters inscribed upon them tell us how many feet of frontage, and how many feet at the back (into the field), belonged to each monument, [IN. FR. P. so many. IN. AG. P. so many.

_In fronte, pedum--. In agro, pedum--_.] M. de Rossi (the brother of our author) has published a very interesting plan of one of these monuments with all its dependencies, as represented on an ancient marble slab dug up on the Via Lavicana. On this slab, not only are the usual measurements of frontage and depth carefully recorded, but also the private or public roads which crossed the {416} property, the gardens and vineyards of which it consisted, the swampy land on which grew nothing but reeds (it is called _Harundinetum_), and the ditch by which, on one side at least, it was bounded. Unfortunately the slab is not perfect, so that we cannot tell the exact measurement of the whole. Enough, however, remains to show that the property altogether was not less than twelve Roman _jugera_, or nearly 350,000 square feet; and other inscriptions are extant, specifying an amount of property almost equal to this as belonging to a single monument (e.g.

_Huic monumento cedunt agri puri jugera decem_). The necessity for so large an a.s.signment of property to a single tomb was not so much the vastness of the mausoleum to be erected, as because certain funeral rites were to be celebrated there year by year, on the anniversary of the death, and at other times; sacrifices to be offered, feasts to be given, etc.; and for these purposes _exedrae_ were provided, or semi-circular recesses, furnished with sofas and all things necessary for the convenience of guests. A house also (_custodia_) was often added, in which a person should always live to look after the monument, for whose support these gardens, vineyards, or other hereditaments were set apart as a perpetual endowment. It only remains to add, that upon all these ancient monuments may be found these letters, or something equivalent to them, H.M.H.EX.T.N.S. (_Hoc monumentum haeredes ex testamento ne sequatur_); in other words, "This tomb and all that belongs to it is sacred; henceforth it can neither be bought nor sold; it does not descend to my heirs with the rest of my property; but must ever be retained inviolate for the purpose to which I have destined it, viz., as a place of sepulchre for myself and my family," or certain specified members only of the family; or, in some rare instances, others also external to the family. The same sacred character which attached to the monuments themselves belonged also to the _area_ in which they stood, the _hypogeum_ or subterranean chamber, which not unfrequently was formed beneath them; but it is a question whether it extended to the houses or other possessions attached to them.

Nor were these monuments confined to the n.o.blest and wealthiest citizens. Even in the absence of all direct evidence upon the subject, we should have found it hard to believe that any but the very meanest of the slaves were buried (or rather were thrown without any burial at all) into those open pits (_puticoli_) of which Horace and others have told us. And in fact, a mult.i.tude of testimonies have come down to us of the existence, both in republican and imperial Rome, of a number of colleges, as they were called, or corporations (clubs or confraternities, as we should more probably call them), whose members were a.s.sociated, partly in honor of some particular deity, but far more with a view to mutual a.s.sistance for the performance of the just funeral rites. Inscriptions which are still extant testify to nearly fourscore of these _collegia_, each consisting of the members of a different trade or profession. There are the masons and carpenters, soldiers and sailors, bakers and cooks, corn-merchants and wine-merchants, hunters and fishermen, goldsmiths and blacksmiths, dealers in drugs and carders of wool, boatmen and divers, doctors and bankers, scribes and musicians--in a word, it would be hard to say what trade or employment is not here represented. Not, however, that this is the only bond of fellowship upon which such confraternities were built; sometimes, indeed generally, the members were united, as we have already said, in the worship of some deity; they were _cultores Jovis_, or _Herculis_, or _Apollinis et Diana_; sometimes they merely took the t.i.tle of some deceased benefactor whose memory they desired to honor; e. g. _cultores statuarum et clipeorum L.

Abulli Dextri;_ and sometimes the only bond of union seems to have been service in the same house or family. A long {417} and curious inscription belonging to one of these colleges, consisting mainly of slaves, and erected in honor of Diana and Antinous, _and for the burial of the dead_, in the year 133 of our era, reveals a number of most interesting particulars as to its internal organization, which are worth repeating in this place. So much was to be paid at entrance, and a keg of good wine beside, and then so much a month afterward; for every member who has regularly paid up his contribution, so much to be allowed for his funeral, of which a certain proportion to be distributed amongst those who a.s.sist; if a member dies at a distance of more than twenty miles from Rome, three members are to be sent to fetch the body, and so much is to be allowed them for travelling expenses; if the master (of the slave) will not give up the body, he is nevertheless to receive all the funeral rites; he is to be buried in effigy; if any of the members, being a slave, receives his freedom, he owes the college an amphora of good wine; he who is elected president (_magister_), must inaugurate his accession to office by giving a supper to all the members; six times a year the members dine together in honor of Diana, Antinous, and the patron of the college, and the allowance of bread and of wine on these occasions is specified; so much to every _mess_ of four; no complaints or disputed questions may be mooted at these festivals, "to the end that our feasts may be merry and glad;" finally, whoever wishes to enter this confraternity is requested to study all the rules first before he enters, lest he afterward grumble or leave a dispute as a legacy to his heir.

We are afraid we have gone into the details of this ancient burial club more than was strictly necessary for our purpose; but we have been insensibly drawn on by their extremely interesting character, reminding us (as the Count de Champagny, from whom we have taken them, most justly remarks) both of the ancient Christian _Agapae_, or love-feasts, and (we may add) the mediaeval guilds. This, however, suggests a train of thought which we must not be tempted to pursue. De Rossi has been more self-denying on the subject; he confines himself to a brief mention of the existence of the clubs, refers us to other authors for an account of them, and then calls our attention to this very singular, and for our purpose most important fact concerning them: viz., that at a time when inst.i.tutions of this kind had been made a cover for political combinations and conspiracies, or at least when the emperors suspected and feared such an abuse of them, and therefore rigorously suppressed them, nevertheless an exception was expressly made in favor of those which consisted of "poorer members of society, who met together _every month_ to make a small contribution toward the expenses of their _funeral_;" and then he puts side by side with this law the words of Tertullian in his _Apology_, written about the very same time, where he speaks of the Christians contributing _every month_, or when and as each can and chooses, a certain sum to be spent on feeding and _burying_ the poor. The ident.i.ty of language in the two pa.s.sages, when thus brought into juxtaposition, is very striking; and we suppose that most of our readers will now recognize the bearing of all we have hitherto been saying upon the history of the Christian catacombs, from which we have seemed to be wandering so, far.

We have already said that one of the first questions which persons are inclined to ask when they either visit, or begin to study, the catacombs, is this: How was so vast a work ever accomplished without the knowledge and against the will of the local authorities? And we answer (in part at least), as the Royal Scientific Society _should_ have answered King Charles the Second's famous question about the live fish and the dead fish in the tub of water, "Are you quite sure of your facts? Don't call upon us to {418} find the reason of a problem which, after all, only exists perhaps in your own imagination." And so in truth it is. The arguments of the Cavaliere de Rossi have satisfied us that the Christians of the first ages were under no necessity of having recourse to extraordinary means of secrecy with reference to the burial of their dead; it was quite possible for them to have cemeteries on every side of Rome, under the protection of the ordinary laws and practices of their pagan neighbors.

But is not this to revolutionize the whole history of these wonderful excavations? We cannot help it, if it be so; it is at least one of those revolutions which are generally accepted as justifiable, and certainly are approved in their consequences; for when it is complete, everything finds its proper place; books and grave-stones, the cemeteries and their ancient historians, every witness concerned gives its own independent testimony, all in harmony with one another, and with the presumed facts of the case. Let us see how the early history of the catacombs runs, when reconstructed according to this new theory. The first Christian cemeteries were made in ground given for that very purpose by some wealthier member of the community, and secured to it in perpetuity in accordance with the laws of the country. There was nothing to prevent the erection of a public monument in the area thus secured, and the excavation of chambers and galleries beneath. And history tells us of several of the most ancient catacombs that they had their origin from this very circ.u.mstance, that some pious Christian, generally a Roman matron of n.o.ble rank, buried the relics of some famous martyr on her own property (_in praedio suo_.)

The oldest memorial we have about the tomb of St. Peter himself is this, that Anacletus "_memoriam construxit B. Petri_, and places where the bishops (of Rome) should be buried;" and this language is far more intelligible and correct, if spoken of some public tomb, than of an obscure subterranean grave; _memoria_, or _cella memoriae_, being the cla.s.sical designation of such tombs. How much more appropriate also does the language of Caius the presbyter, preserved to us by Eusebius, now appear, wherein he speaks (in the days of Zephyrinus) of the _trophies_ of the apostles being _to be seen_ at the Vatican and on the Ostian way? Tertullian, too, speaks of the bodies of the martyrs lying in _mausoleums and monuments_, awaiting the general resurrection. From the same writer we learn that the _areae_ of the Christian burials were known to and were sacrilegiously attacked by the enraged heathens in the very first years of the third century; and quite recently there has reached us from this same writer's country a most valuable inscription, discovered among the ruins of a Roman building, not far from the walls of the ancient Caesarea of Mauritania, which runs in this wise: "Euelpius, a worshipper of the word (_cultor Verbi_; mark the word, and call to mind the _cultores Jovis_, etc.), has given this area for sepulchres, and has built a _cella_ at his own cost. He left this _memoria_ to the holy church.

Hail, brethren: Euelpius, with a pure and simple heart, salutes you, born of the Holy Spirit." It is true that this inscription, as we now have it, is not the original stone; it is expressly added at the foot of the tablet, that _Ecclesia fratrum_ has restored this _t.i.tulus_ at a period subsequent to the persecution during which the original had been destroyed; but both the sense and the words forbid us to suppose that any change had been made in the language of the epitaph, to which we cannot a.s.sign a date later than the middle of the third century.

But, finally, and above all, let us descend into the catacombs themselves, and put them to the question. Michael Stephen de Rossi, the constant companion of his brother's studies, having invented some new mechanical contrivance for taking plans of subterranean excavations, [Footnote 78] has made exact {419} plans of several catacombs, not only of each level (or _floor_, so to speak) within itself, but also in its relations to the superficial soil, and in the relations of the several floors one with another. A specimen of these is set before us by means of different colors or tints, representing the galleries of the different levels, in the map of the cemetery of St. Callixtus, which accompanies this volume; and a careful study of this map is sufficient to demonstrate that the vast net-work of paths in this famous cemetery originally consisted of several smaller cemeteries, confined each within strict and narrow limits, and that they were only united at some later, though still very ancient period.

For it cannot have been without reason that the subterranean galleries should have doubled and re-doubled upon themselves within the limits of a certain well-defined area; that they should never have overstepped a certain boundary-line in this or that direction, though the nature of the soil and every other consideration would have seemed to invite them to proceed; that they should have been suddenly interrupted by a flight of steps, penetrating more deeply into the bowels of the earth, and there been reproduced exactly upon the same scale and within the same limits. These facts can only be fully appreciated by an actual examination of the map, where they speak for themselves; but even those who have not this advantage will scarcely call in question the conclusion that is drawn from them, when they call to mind how exactly it coincides with all the ancient testimonies we have already adduced on the subject, and when they learn the singular and most interesting fact, that the Cav. de Rossi has been able in more than one instance, by means of the sepulchral inscriptions, to identify the n.o.ble family by whom the site of the cemetery was originally granted.

[Footnote 78: It was highly commended and received a prize at the International Exhibition of 1862.]

It will be of course understood that we have been speaking of the earliest ages of the Church's history, and that we are far from denying that there were other periods during which secrecy was an essential condition of the Christian cemeteries; on the contrary, did our s.p.a.ce allow, we could show what parts of the catacombs belonged to the one period, and what to the other, and what are the essential characteristics of each. We might unfold also, with considerable minuteness, the _economy_ of these cemeteries, even during the ages of persecution; under whose management they were administered, whether they were parochial or otherwise, together with many other highly interesting particulars. But we have already exceeded the limits a.s.signed us, and we hope that those of our readers who wish to know more on the subject will take care to possess themselves of the book from which we have drawn our information, that so funds may not be wanting for the completion of so useful a work. Nothing but a deficiency of funds, in the present condition of the pontifical treasury, hinders the immediate issue of other volumes of this and its kindred work, the _Inscriptiones Christianae,_ by the same author. He announces his intention to bring out the volumes of _Roma Sotterranea_ and of the _Inscriptions_ alternately, for they mutually explain and ill.u.s.trate one another, and are in fact parts of the same whole; and the public has been long impatient for the volume which is promised next, viz., the ancient inscriptions which ill.u.s.trate Christian dogma.

{420}

MISCELLANY.

ART.

_Domestic._--The fortieth annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design was opened to the public on the evening of April 27th, under circ.u.mstances which may well mark an era in the history of that inst.i.tution. After drifting from place to place through forty long years, now deficient in funds, and now in danger of losing public sympathy or support, sometimes unable to carry out its specific purposes, and almost always cramped for s.p.a.ce, or otherwise perplexed in the details of its public exhibitions, the Academy, like Noah's ark, long buffetted by waves and driven by tempests, finds a resting place, not on Mount Ararat, but at the corner of Fourth avenue and Twenty-third street. And as the "world's gray fathers," after their troubled voyage, regarded with infinite satisfaction _terra firma_ and the blue sky, so doubtless the older of the academicians, those who have accompanied the inst.i.tution in all its wanderings, are doubtless both pleased and amazed to find themselves arrived at a goodly haven with secure anchorage. To drop the figure, the Academy is now permanently established in an attractive and convenient building, well situated in a central locality, and bids fair to enter upon a career of usefulness far beyond the results of its previous experience.

The new building has been for so long a time completed externally, that its merits have been canva.s.sed with every shade of opinion, from enthusiastic commendation to quite as decided disapprobation. The majority of critics, having their reputation at stake, are afraid to hazard an opinion, and prudently remain neutral, until some authoritative decision shall be made. As an architectural effort it may be called an experiment, on which account it presents perhaps as many claims to critical notice as the works of art which adorn its walls. The style, singularly enough, is a.s.signed to no special era or country, but is described to be of "that revived Gothic, now the dominant style in England, which combines those features of the different schools of architecture of the Middle Ages which are most appropriate to our nineteenth-century buildings," which means probably that the building is of an eclectic Gothic pattern. All modern styles since the renaissance may be said to be eclectic, whether founded on antique or mediaeval models, and the building in question differs from other Gothic edifices, of more familiar aspect to us, chiefly in form, external decoration, and the arrangement of its component parts. In the American mind Gothic architecture is a.s.sociated chiefly with ecclesiastical structures and is popularly supposed to be subject to no fixed laws, beyond an adherence to the irregular and picturesque.

Given a cruciform ground-plan, a pointed spire, steep roof, narrow arched windows, b.u.t.tresses, and pinnacles _ad libitum_, and you have as good a Gothic building as the public taste can appreciate. Here, however, is a nearly square building, covering an area of eighty by about a hundred feet, which is neither a church nor a college, and is without steep roof, spire, b.u.t.tresses, or pinnacles. The public evidently do not fathom the mystery at present, and those whose praise of the new Academy borders on the extravagant, are perhaps as much astray in their adherence to the _omne ignotum pro magnifico_ principle as those wiseacres who tell you knowingly that the architect has tried to palm off upon us a palpable imitation of the doge's palace in Venice. If the latter cla.s.s of critics will refresh their memory a little, or consult any good print of Venetian architecture, they will find about as much resemblance between the two buildings as exists between the old Custom House in Wall street and the Parthenon.

The plain fact is that we are so unused to Gothic architecture, applied to secular purposes, and to any other forms of it than the ecclesiastical, as to be without sufficient data to form a correct idea of the present edifice. And yet, such is the conceit of criticism, that thousands of persons p.r.o.nounce their judgment upon it with as much confidence as they would upon a trivial matter perfectly {421} familiar to them. These may yet find that hasty opinions are dangerous.

The Academy, as has been hinted above, is of rectangular shape, having three stories, of which the first is devoted to the life school and the school of design, the second to the library, reception rooms, council room, and similar apartments, and the third to the exhibition galleries, five in number, with which at present we have specially to deal. The main entrance to the building is on Twenty-third street.

Pa.s.sing up a double flight of marble steps and through a magnificent Gothic portal into a vestibule, the visitor next enters the great hall, in the centre of which commences a broad stairway, consisting at first of a double flight of steps, and ultimately of a single flight, leading to the level of the exhibition floor. Running all around the open s.p.a.ce on this story caused by the stairway is a corridor, two sides of which, parallel with the stairway, comprise a double arcade, supported on columns of variegated and polished marble, the capitals of which, of white marble, are hereafter to be sculptured in delicate leaf-and-flower work from nature. Opening from this corridor are the exhibition rooms, which also communicate with each other, and of which the largest is thirty by seventy-six feet, and the smallest, used as a gallery of sculpture, is twenty-one feet square. These are all lighted by sky-lights, and are intended for the purposes of the annual exhibitions. In the corridor surrounding the stairway are to be hung the works of art belonging to the Academy, although at present its walls are covered with pictures contributed to this year's exhibition.

The several rooms described are well-lighted, and though smaller perhaps than the large outlay upon the building might have led the public to expect, seem excellently adapted for their purposes. The largest of them is a model exhibition gallery in respect to proportions and light, and all are tastefully finished and pannelled with walnut from floor to ceiling. Throughout the building the same costly and durable style prevails, the wood-work being of oak and walnut, and the vestibules floored with mosaic of tiles.

So much for the interior, against which no serious complaint has been uttered. Externally the walls of the bas.e.m.e.nt story are of gray marble relieved by bands of graywacke, those of the story above of white marble with similar bands, while the uppermost story is of white marble with checker-work pattern of oblong gray blocks, laid stair-fashion. The whole is surmounted by a rich arcaded cornice of white marble. The double flight of white marble steps on Twenty-third street, leading to the main entrance, is, perhaps, the most marked feature of the building, at once graceful, rich, and substantial, and may fairly challenge comparison with any similar structure of like pattern in the country. Under the platform is a triple arcade, inclosing a drinking-fountain, and profusely decorated with sculpture, and from the upper landing springs the great arched Gothic portal, large enough almost for the entrance to a cathedral. On either side of this are two columns of red Vermont marble with white marble capitals and bases, on which rests a broad archivolt enriched with sculpture and varied by voussoirs, alternately white and gray. The tympanum above the door is to be filled with an elaborate mosaic of colored tile work. The bas.e.m.e.nt windows, on Fourth avenue, are double, with segmental arches, each pair of which is supported in the middle on a cl.u.s.tered column with rich carved capital and base. All the other windows in the building have pointed arches, and the archivolts of those in the first story are decorated like that of the doorway. In the place of windows on the gallery floor are circular openings for ventilation, filled with elaborate tracery. The building was designed by Mr. P. B. Wight, and erected at a cost of over two hundred thousand dollars.

Without attempting to inquire whether this or that portion of the building is correctly designed, or even whether the whole is entirely satisfactory, or the reverse, we may say that in the opinion of most persons the external flight of steps and the entrance are too large and elaborate for the building, reminding one of those remarkable edifices for banking or other public purposes occasionally to be seen in this city, which are all portico, as if the main structure had walked away, or had not been considered of sufficient importance to be added to the entrance. It is partly owing to this defect, and partly to the insufficient area on which it is built, {422} that the Academy seems wanting in height and depth, and therefore devoid of just proportions--has in fact an unmistakable _dumpy look_. Many an architect before Mr. Wight has been prevented by want of s.p.a.ce from effectively developing ideas intrinsically good, and perhaps the severest criticism that can be p.r.o.nounced against him in the present instance is that ambition has led him to attempt what his better judgment might have taught him was impossible. "Cut your coat according to your cloth," is a maxim of which the applicability is not yet exhausted. Again, the obtrusive ugliness of the skylights, rising clear above the sculptured cornices, can hardly fail to offend the eye, and suggests the idea of an enc.u.mbered or even an overloaded roof. If to these defects be added the curious optical delusion by which the gray marble checker-work on the upper story appears uneven and awry, and which denotes a radical error in design, we believe we have mentioned the chief features of the building which even those who profess to admire it unite in condemning. The objection that the building is of unusual form and appearance, and out of keeping with the styles of architecture in vogue with us, is not worthy of serious consideration.

Having said so much in depreciation of the Academy, we must also say that it conveys on the whole an elegant, artistic, and even cheerful impression to the mind, relieving, with its beautiful contrasts of white and gray and slate, the sombre blocks of red or brown buildings which surround it, and actually lightening up the rather prosaic quarter in which it stands. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the architect for the combinations of color which he has infused into his design; and, granting that in this respect he has committed some errors of detail, they are trifling in comparison with the good effects which will probably result from the future employment of this means of embellishment. What if the idea, imperfectly embodied in this experimental building, should in the end compa.s.s the overthrow of that taste which leads us to build gloomy piles of brown houses, overlaid with tawdry ornamentation, and p.r.o.nounce them beautiful? When such an innovation is attempted and finds even a moderate degree of favor, there is hope that the era of architectural coldness and poverty may yet pa.s.s away. The carving profusely distributed on both the exterior and interior of the building, and of which, we are told, "the flowers and leaves of our woods have furnished the models," is for the most part exquisite in design and execution. Here, at least, is naturalistic art, against which the sticklers for idealism can offer no objection, so beautiful and appropriate are the designs, and so suggestive of the necessity of going back to nature for inspiration.

If the new Academy possessed no other merit than this, it would nevertheless subserve a useful purpose in the development of taste.

Having devoted so much s.p.a.ce to the building, we can only allude generally to the contents of its galleries, of which we propose to speak more at length in a future notice. The exhibition, though inferior to those of some years in the number, exceeds them all in the quality of its pictures, and presents on the whole a creditable and encouraging view of the progress of American art. If the capacity of the galleries is not so great as was expected, there is on the other hand less danger that the eye will be offended by a long array of unsightly works, and we may probably bid good-bye to the monstrosities of composition and color which the Academy was formerly compelled to receive, in order to eke out its annual exhibitions. Such has been the increase in the number of our resident artists of late years, that but a limited number of pictures, and those consequently their best efforts, can henceforth be contributed by each. This fact alone will ensure a constantly increasing improvement to succeeding exhibitions.

As usual, landscape predominates, with every variety of treatment and motive, from Academic generalization and pure naturalism down to Pre-Raphaelitism and hopeful though somewhat imperfect attempts at ideal sentiment. Portraiture and genre are also well represented, with a fair proportion of animal, flower, and still-life pieces, and of the numerous family of miscellaneous subjects which defy cla.s.sification.

History is even less affected than usual, the dramatic episodes of the great rebellion failing to suggest subjects to our painters other than those of an indirect or merely probable character. So far as the present exhibition may be supposed to afford an {423} indication, "high art," and particularly that branch of it which ill.u.s.trates sacred history, is defunct among--us a circ.u.mstance which those who have witnessed previous efforts by contemporary American painters in that department will not perhaps regret. The pictures are generally hung with judgment, and in a spirit of fairness which ought to satisfy, though it will not probably in every instance, the demands of exhibitors. And it may be added that they appear to good effect, and are daily admired, using the word in its derived as well as its more common sense, by throngs of visitors.

Church, the landscape painter, has recently gone to the West Indies, with the intention of pa.s.sing the summer in the mountain region of Jamaica, where he will doubtless find abundant materials for study. He leaves behind a large unfinished work of great promise, "The Rainbow in the Tropics," and some completed ones of less dimensions.

Augero, an Italian artist, has recently completed for a church in Boston a picture of St. Andrew bearing the cross, of which a contemporary says: "Mr. Augero has departed from the traditional types that have descended to him, and has treated the picture in a manner entirely his own. The head of the saint is finely handled, and, without being too much spiritualized, has sufficient of the ideal to give it value both as a church picture and a work of art. In general arrangement and color the work is especially to be admired." This artist is said to have received quite a number of commissions for ecclesiastical decoration.

Palmer is completing a bust of Washington Irving, which has been p.r.o.nounced by the friends of the latter a successful likeness.

An essay on Gustave Dore, by B. P. G. Hamilton, will soon be published by Leypoldt of Philadelphia.

The spring exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is now open in Philadelphia. The collections are said to be large and to represent all departments of painting.

_Foreign_.--The Exhibition of the Society of British Artists and the General Exhibition of Water Color Drawings opened in London in the latter part of April. The former contains more than a thousand pictures, few of which, it is said, rise above the most common average of picture-making, while the greater part fall below it. "There is something very depressing," says the _Reader_, "about such a large display of commonplace art. It is almost painful to have the fact forced upon one's mind, that the thought and labor represented in all these pictures is misapplied, if not wasted; for to this conclusion we must come, if we bring the display in Suffolk street to the test of comparison with any real work of art. A fine picture by Landseer or Millais would outweigh, in intrinsic value, the whole collection.

Denude the Royal Academy exhibition of the works of Landseer, Millais, Philip, and other of its most accomplished contributors, and subtract from it at the same time the works of promise which lend to it so great an interest, and we should have a second Suffolk street exhibition, characterized by a similar dead level of mediocrity and insipidity; for neither highly accomplished work nor sign of promise is to be seen in this the forty-second annual exhibition of the Society of British Artists." From which it would appear that contemporary art in England gives no remarkable promise.

A large collection of the late John Leech's sketches, etc., was lately sold in London. It comprised the original designs for the political cartoons and pictures of life and character which have appeared in Punch during the last twenty years; the designs for the "Ingoldsby Legends," "Jorrock's Hunt," "Ask Mamma," "Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds,"

and other sporting novels, and several pictures in oil. The prices ran very high, the net result being 4,089.

The collection of paintings and water color drawings by the best modern British artists, formed by Mr. John Knowles, of Manchester, was recently disposed of in London at very handsome prices. The chief attraction was Rosa Bonheur's "Muleteers Crossing the Pyrenees," which brought 2,000 guineas. The collection realized 21,750.

Preparations are making to remove the cartoons of Raphael from Hampton Court to the new north fire-proof gallery in the South Kensington Museum, formerly occupied by the British pictures of the National Gallery.

The Great Pourtales sale has closed {424} after lasting upward of a month and realizing a sum total of nearly three millions of francs. A Paris paper states that, considering the interest of the sums expended in forming the collection as money lost, the sale will give a profit on the outlay of a million and a half of francs, or about a hundred per cent.--a notable ill.u.s.tration of the mania for picture buying now prevailing in Europe. The owner died ten years ago, leaving directions that the collection should not be sold until 1864, for which his heirs and representatives are doubtless properly grateful. The following will give an idea of the prices fetched by the best pictures: Campagne, Ph. de: The Marriage of the Virgin, formerly the altar-piece of the chapel of the Palais Royal, sold for 43,500f. Hals, Francis: An unknown portrait of a man; his left hand leaning on his hip and touching the handle of his sword, 51,000f. Rembrandt: Portrait of a Burgomaster, 34,500f. By the same: Portrait of a veteran soldier seated at a table, 27,000f. Murillo: The Triumph of the Eucharist; with the words _"In finem dilexit eos,"_ 67,500f.; bought for the Louvre. By the same: The Virgin bending over the infant Christ, whom she presses to her bosom, 18,000f. By the same: St. Joseph holding the infant Christ by the hand, 15,000f. Velasquez: The Orlando Muerto, a bare-headed warrior, in a black cuira.s.s, lying dead in a grotto strewn with human bones, his right hand on his breast, his left on the guard of his sword; from the roof of the grotto hangs a lamp, in which the flame is flickering, 37,000f. Albert Durer: A pen drawing, representing Samson, of colossal size, routing the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an a.s.s, 4,500f. A portrait by Antonelli di Messina, bought years ago in Florence by Pourtales for 1,500f., and appraised in his inventory at 20,000f., was sold to the Louvre, where it now hangs in the _salon carre_, for 113,000f.

Gustave Dore is announced to have undertaken to ill.u.s.trate Shakespeare and the Bible.

The sale of the Due de Moray's gallery of paintings will take place in June. It contains six Meissoniers, which cost, at the utmost, not above 60,000 francs, but which will now probably fetch more than double that price.

A picture by Ribera, representing St. Luke taking the likeness of the Virgin, was sold recently in Paris for 21,000f.

French landscape art has lost one of its chief ill.u.s.trators in the person of Constant Troyon, who died in the latter part of March, aged about fifty-two. He has been called the creator of the modern French school of landscape, and delighted in cheerful aspects of nature, which he rendered with masterly skill. Rural life, with its pleasing accessories of winding streams, picturesque low banks, groups of cattle, and shady hamlets, formed the favorite subjects of his pencil; and though his style was not always exact, he succeeded in infusing an unusual degree of physical life into his pictures, without ever degenerating into mere naturalism. As a colorist he excelled all contemporary animal and landscape painters, and used his brush with a freedom rivalling that of Delacroix. He died insane, and is said to have left a fortune of 1,200,000 francs. Some of his pictures are owned in New York.