There are other American sculptors deserving more than mere allusion, like Dexter, Richard Greenough, Barbee, Volk, Edmonia Lewis, Van Wart, Ives, Macdonald, Kernys, Ezekiel, Calverly, and Haseltine, who in portraiture or the ideal have won a more than respectable position; but our s.p.a.ce limits us to a notice of several artists who, like Ward, combine great natural ability with traits distinctively American. One of these is Erastus D. Palmer, of Albany, who has won transatlantic fame by the purity and originality of his art. The son of a farmer, and exercising the calling of a carpenter until nearly thirty, Palmer did not yield to the artistic yearnings of his nature until comparatively late in life. When he at last took up the pursuit of art, it was in his own town that he studied and sought fame, and his success was rapid and entirely deserved. Few of our sculptors have been such true votaries of the ideal, few have been able better to give it expression, and none have shown a type of beauty so national, or have more truly interpreted with an exquisite poetic sense the distinctive domestic refinement or religious thought of our people. It is beauty rather than power that we see expressed in the works of this true poet--moral beauty identified with a type of physical grace wholly native. It is an art which finds immediate response here, for it is of our age and our land. Among the notable works of Palmer are his "Indian Captive," "Spring," "The White Slave," and "The Angel of the Sepulchre;" but we prefer to these the exquisitely beautiful ba.s.s-reliefs in which he has embodied with extreme felicity the domestic sentiments or the yearnings and aspirations of the Christian soul. The radical fault of Palmer"s art is that he has depended more on his fancy than upon a direct study of nature for his compositions. The natural result has been that he soon began to lapse into mannerism, which has become more and more prominent in his later works.
Another sculptor of great ability owes his first instruction in the plastic art to Palmer--Launt Thompson. He was a poor lad who early showed art instincts, but was employed in the office of Dr. Armsby, until Palmer stated one day that he was in search of an a.s.sistant, and asked Dr. Armsby if he could recommend any one. The doctor suggested Thompson (who was in the room) as a youth who had a turn that way, but had been unable to find opportunity to gratify his art cravings. Thus began the career of one of our strongest portrait sculptors. In the modelling both of the bust and the full figure, Thompson has been equalled by very few American sculptors. Among many successful works may be mentioned his Napoleon, Edwin Booth, General Sedgwick, at West Point, and President Pierson, at Yale College. It is a cause for just regret that, after having achieved such success at home, Thompson should have deemed it necessary to take up his residence permanently in Italy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WHIRLWIND."--[J. S. HARTLEY.]]
[Ill.u.s.tration: "ADORATION OF THE CROSS BY ANGELS." ST. THOMAS"S CHURCH, NEW YORK.--[ST. GAUDENS.]]
Another artist whose work is entirely native to the soil is John Rogers, whose numerous statuette groups in clay have made him more widely known in the country than any other of our sculptors. A native of Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, and for awhile engaged in mechanical pursuits, this artist was at last able to turn his attention to plastic art, and went to Europe, where he seems to have gained suggestions from the realistic and impressional school of the later French sculptors; but this was rather as a suggestion than an influence, and, finding his mind more in sympathy with home life, he soon returned, and has ever since worked here, and from subjects of homely every-day _genre_ around him. The late war has also furnished Rogers with material for many interesting groups. The art of Rogers is to the last degree unconventional, and in no sense appertains to what is called high art, but it springs from a nature moved by correct impulses, beating in unison with the time, and occupying the position of pioneer in the art of the future, because he has been true to himself and his age.
Daniel C. French, a pupil of Ward and Ball, is a young sculptor who, like Rogers, finds inspiration for his ideals in his native land, and gives promise of holding a prominent position in the field of American sculpture. He made a sudden and early strike for fame when, with scarce any instruction, he modelled the spirited and original, although anatomically imperfect, statue called the "Minute Man," which is at Concord.
Another strong representative of the new realistic school of sculpture that is gradually springing up in the community is W. R. O"Donovan, of Richmond, Virginia. Fighting st.u.r.dily on the side of the South during the late war, he as earnestly gives himself now to the pursuit of the arts of peace. He is not a rapid worker, but handles the clay with thoughtful mastery, and the results are stamped with the freshness and individuality of genius. Mr. O"Donovan"s efforts have been most successful in portraiture, of which a striking example is given in the bronze bust of Mr. Page, the artist. Another bust, of a young boy, is as full of _nave_ beauty and refined sentiment and character as this is vigorous and almost startling in its grasp of individual traits.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS JEFFERSON"S IDEA OF A MONUMENT.]
The transition stage through which our plastic art is pa.s.sing is also indicated by the stirring, realistic, and sometimes sensational art of a number of earnest and original young sculptors who have studied abroad, but have wisely concluded to return home, and to found, and grow up with, a new and progressive school of sculpture. One of these was the late Frank Dengler, of Cincinnati, who had studied at Munich, and was professor of sculpture at Boston; and others are Olin M. Warner, of New York, and Howard Roberts, of Philadelphia, who made the singularly bold statues of "Hypatia" and "Lot"s Wife." To these may be added J. S.
Hartley, who was recently Professor of Anatomy at the Art Students"
League, and is now president of that flourishing inst.i.tution. He began his career in Palmer"s studio, and afterward studied in London and Paris. The art of these young sculptors is still immature and highly emotional or lyrical, and often verges on the picturesque rather than the severely cla.s.sic. But if it lacks repose, on the other hand it is imaginative and powerful; its faults are those of an exuberant fancy that teems with thought; and these artists are undoubtedly the forerunners, if not the creators, of a thoroughly national school of sculpture. Superior in technic skill, moved by a genius thoroughly trained in the best modern school of plastic art, that of Paris, St.
Gaudens, a native of New York, has given us, in the exquisite groups called "The Adoration of the Cross by Angels," in St. Thomas"s Church, New York, one of the most important and beautiful works in the country.
The Astor Reredos behind the altar at Trinity Church, designed by Mr.
Withers, and partly executed here, is also a very rich addition to our plastic art, and is another sign that it is taking a direction little followed heretofore on this side the Atlantic. Dr. William Rimmer, who has recently died, powerful in modelling, a master of art anatomy, and author of a valuable work on that subject, also exerted an important influence in directing the studies of our rising sculptors. Having little sense of beauty, he understood art anatomy profoundly, and modelled with energy if not with grace. His statue of "The Gladiator"
aroused astonishment in Paris; for as it is impossible for a living man to keep a falling position long enough for a cast to be taken, this masterly composition was necessarily a creation of the imagination based upon exhaustive knowledge of the figure.
Wood and stone carving and monumental work, and the decoration of churches and civic structures, have rarely been satisfactorily attempted here until recently. A curious paper and design left by Thomas Jefferson, of which we give a reduced fac-simile, is one of the earliest attempts at original monumental art in the United States. Here and there one of our sculptors has executed some good work in this field, but costly monuments have too often been erected in the country without much pretension to art. The increasing attention given to wood and stone carving, as in the new Music Hall at Cincinnati, the State Capitols at Albany and Hartford, and in some of our later churches, is a favorable sign that a broader field is opening at last for the fitting utterance of the rising genius of sculpture; while the numerous schools for instruction in this art that have been founded within the last decade, and the well-stored galleries of casts of the masterpieces of antiquity, are increasing the facilities for the growth of a home art. Enough has been said in this brief sketch to show that sculpture, if one of the latest of the arts to demand expression in the United States, has yet found a congenial soil in the New World.
VI.
_PRESENT TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN ART._
At the close of the fourth chapter of this volume it was briefly stated that new influences and forms of art expression have recently become prominent in our art, and are rapidly a.s.serting their growing importance. With perhaps one or two exceptions, these new influences so gradually shade out of our former art that it is difficult to tell the exact moment when they a.s.sume an individuality of their own, and appear as new and distinct factors in the aesthetic culture of our people.
It is only when we take a retrospect of the whole field, and compare one generation with another, that we discern the vanishing point of one set of influences and the genesis of new schools, with the introduction of new branches of art culture in the community. Considering the progress of American art from this point of view, we find it divided most decidedly into periods, advancing with regular pace from one phase to another like the tints of a rainbow, shading off at the edges, but gradually becoming more intense. Thus we are able to trace in geometrical ratio the progress from primitive silhouettes and rude carvings up to the present comparatively advanced condition of the arts in this country.
And yet a closer inspection into the history of American art enables us to detect in its growth the same rapid spasmodic action, when once a start is made in a certain direction, as in other traits of our national development. There is a tropical vivacity in the manner in which with us bloom and fruition suddenly burst forth after a period of apparently unpromising barrenness. Thus West and Copley appeared almost full-fledged in art genius and capacity to adapt themselves to occupy prominent positions in Europe, and yet there were but few premonitory signs to indicate that the country was prepared for the advent of such artists.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE MOWING."--ALFRED FREDERICKS.]
Until recently, also, owing to some cause yet unsolved, we have not seemed able to develop more than one or two forms of art at once. At one period it was historic painting and portraiture; then portraiture, including for a time very marked success in miniature painting, headed by Fraser and Malbone, and continued by such able artists as T. S.
c.u.mmings, J. H. Brown, Miss Goodrich, and Mrs. Hall; then, all at once, landscape-painting made its appearance, and almost at a bound reached a good degree of merit. Hand in hand with landscape art came remarkable facility in line engraving. How rapidly excellence in this art was achieved in this country may be judged from the fact that in 1788 the editor of the _American Magazine_ said apologetically, in presenting an incredibly rude plate of a dredging-machine in the magazine, "The editor has given the plate of the new machine for clearing docks, etc., because he had promised it. The want of elegant plates in a work of this kind is extremely regretted, and will, if possible, be supplied. If it cannot, the editor flatters himself that the infancy of the arts in America will be accepted as an apology for the defect." And yet not twenty years from that time Peter Maverick was doing good steel-engraving in New York; and scarce ten years later Durand was executing the masterly engravings of Trumbull"s "Declaration of Independence" and Vanderlyn"s "Ariadne." And from that time until recently engravers like James Smillie, senior, A.
H. Ritchie, and John Marshall have carried this art to a high degree of excellence; while John Sartain has attained celebrity in mezzotint.
Strange as it may seem, while portraiture, landscape, and steel engraving were pursued with such success by our artists, a feeling for the other arts could hardly be said to exist. A sympathy with form, generally the earliest art instinct to show itself, was long in awakening, as proved by the tardiness of the plastic arts to demand expression among us; while to the resources of black and white, or _camieu_, or a perception of the matchless mystery and suggestiveness of _chiaro-oscuro_, the people have, until within a very short time, seemed altogether blind. Water-colors, also, were almost hooted at; wood-engraving was for long in a pitiful condition; and as for architecture and the decorative arts, nothing worthy of the name, and scarcely a sign of a perception of their meaning, could be said to exist on this side of the Atlantic.
Some years ago W. J. Linton, one of the most distinguished wood-engravers of the century, came to this country to live. Whether that had anything to do with the very rapid development of wood-engraving here since that time cannot be stated with certainty; but, judging from a.n.a.logy, we should say that he has exerted a marked influence in stimulating the remarkable progress already reached by our engravers within a very few years. A.V.S. Anthony was one of the first to respond to the awakening demand for good wood-engraving here, and has shown great delicacy and skill in interpreting the drawings of our very clever artists in black and white. Charles Marsh is also an engraver of remarkable character and originality of style. In the rendering of a decorative or highly ideal cla.s.s of subjects he brings to his aid an artistic genius not surpa.s.sed by any engraver we have produced. Messrs.
Morse, Davis, Hoskin, Wolf, Annin, Juengling, Kingsley, Muller, Cole, Smithwick and French, Kreul, Dana, Andrew, and King, among a number who have distinguished themselves in this art, are especially noteworthy, not only for correct rendering of the spirit of a drawing, but often for individuality of style.
One of the most interesting phases of the development of wood-engraving in this country has been the discussion as to its position among the arts, and the merits of the recent method of engraving drawings or paintings photographed directly on the wood. This discussion has been interesting and valuable as another evidence of the activity and importance which the art question has already a.s.sumed in the community.
That engraving is an art, one would think could never be disputed, if the question had not already been raised with a certain degree of acrimony on the part--strange as it may seem--of those who are often dependent upon the genius of the engraver for the recognition of their abilities by the public--the artists themselves. It seems to us to be sufficient answer to those who consider it purely a mechanical pursuit, that the simple fact that the higher the artistic perceptions of the engraver the better is the engraving he does, proves it to be a work of art.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "BIRDS IN THE FOREST."--[MISS JESSIE CURTIS.]]
On the other hand, it appears that the engraver may in turn a.s.sume too much when he claims to improve upon an ill.u.s.tration, or objects _per se_ to cutting photographs on wood. While granting to engraving the rank of art, it cannot justly be forgotten that it is, after all, a means to an end,--an art, it is true, but an art subordinate to other arts which it is designed to interpret. Once this is allowed, it follows, as a matter of course, that it is the duty of the engraver to render faithfully the drawing or painting that is to be cut; and to magnify himself not at the expense of the artist who made the drawing, but by rendering, as nearly as possible, a fac-simile of the original picture. If this be granted, then is it not clear that, instead of opposing, he should hail with satisfaction any new process which enables him to give on wood or any other material a closer copy of the style and spirit of the artist whom he is interpreting. That this can be done by a clever engraver by photographing a pen-and-ink drawing or painting directly on the wood, and then studying also the original work as he cuts it, seems to be no longer an open question. It has been demonstrated by too many excellent engravers within the last five years.
Another advantage of what we cannot but consider an advance in this art is, that it admits of a larger variety of styles, and a freer expression of the designer"s methods of thought and feeling, and also enables many who do not care to work in the cramped limits of a block of wood to make a large composition in black and white, whether with Indian-ink or monochrome in oil, which is then photographed on the wood. In this way far greater freedom and individuality of handling is obtained, and a n.o.bler utterance of the truths of nature. Can there be any question that a process which allows of such variety of expression must inure to art progress, and still more to the instruction of the people, who are directly benefited by the ill.u.s.trations which are brought to their own doors, and placed in the hands of the young at the time when their tastes and characters are forming, and their imagination is most plastic and impressionable?
It would seem as if the art of wood-engraving had received in the most direct manner the action of some unseen hand, impelling it suddenly forward in this country by concerted action with the genius of ill.u.s.tration; for apparently by secret agreement that branch of art has within the last decade developed a comparative excellence yet reached by none of the sister arts in the land. And this turn for ill.u.s.tration has naturally been accompanied by an active movement in black and white drawing, particularly in crayon.
Samuel W. Rowse was one of the first to give an impetus to crayon drawing by a style of portraiture especially his own. As such he ranks with our leading portrait-painters; while the fact that he employed crayon as a medium for a time gave him a position almost entirely alone in this country. There is a wonderful subtlety in his power of seizing character and the rendition of soul in the faces he portrays. Equally happy in all the subjects he treats, he will be longest remembered, perhaps, for the many beautiful children"s portraits he has executed.
The success of Rowse naturally led to similar attempts by other artists; and in all our leading cities one may now find crayon artists who are more or less successful in the department of portraiture, among whom may be mentioned B. C. Munzig and Frederick W. Wright. Out of this has grown a school of landscape-artists employing charcoal--a medium that Lalanue and Allonge had already used with magical results. John R. Key, who is well known as a painter in oil, has, however, done his best work, as it seems to us, in charcoal. There is great tenderness in his treatment of light and shade, together with harmonious composition. J. Hopkinson Smith, known as a water-colorist, also handles charcoal like a master.
He seizes his effects with the rapidity of improvisation, treats them in ma.s.ses, and shows a feeling for _chiaro-oscuro_ that is almost unique in our art.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Representing the manner of PETER"S Courtship.
[Howard Pyle.]]
When we come to the book ill.u.s.trators we encounter a number of artists of merit, and occasionally of genius, who are so numerous that we can select only here and there a few of the most prominent names. Felix O.
C. Darley was one of the first to show the latent capacity of our art in this branch. His style soon became very mannered, but, at the same time, undoubtedly showed great originality and invention in seizing striking characteristics of our civilization, and a refined fancy in representing both humor and pathos. His linear ill.u.s.trations to "Rip Van Winkle" and Judd"s "Margaret" placed him, until recently, among our first two or three _genre_ artists. Less versatile and inventive, Augustus Hoppin has, however, earned an honorable position among our earlier ill.u.s.trators. Louis Stephens also won distinction for an elegant rendering of humorous subjects. Then followed a group of landscape ill.u.s.trators, among whom Harry Fenn holds a high position for poetically rendering the illimitable aspects of nature and the picturesqueness of rustic or Old World scenery and ruins. Under the guidance of his facile pencil how many have been instructed in art, and learned of the varied loveliness of this beautiful world! Thomas Moran ranks with Mr. Fenn as a master in this field. It appears to us that in this branch he displays more originality and imagination than in the elaborate paintings by which he is best known.
Within a very few years--so recently, in fact, that it is difficult to see where they came from--a school of _genre_ ill.u.s.trators have claimed recognition in our art, educated altogether in this country, and yet combining more art qualities in their works than we find in the same number of artists in any other department of American art. It is a little singular that, notwithstanding the recent interest in black and white in this country, the _genre_ artists who represent it should at once have reached an excellence which commands admiration on both sides of the Atlantic, while our painters in the same department have rarely achieved more than a secondary rank.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME ART CONNOISSEURS.--[W. HAMILTON GIBSON.]]
Alfred Fredericks has distinguished himself by combining landscape and figure in a most graceful, airy style; and Miss Jessie Curtis, in the delineation of the simplicity and beauty of child life, has delightfully treated one of the most winsome subjects which can attract the pencil of the poetic artist. Miss Humphreys, in the choice of a somewhat similar cla.s.s of subjects, has yet developed individuality of method marked by breadth of effect and forcible treatment. Of the ladies who have found scope for their abilities in the field of ill.u.s.tration perhaps none have excelled Mrs. Mary Halleck Foote. We cannot always find her style of composition agreeable, and in invention or lightness of fancy she seems deficient, while her manner is strong rather than graceful. But she is a most careful student of nature, and the effects she aims at, and sometimes reaches, are inspired by an almost masculine nerve and power, and show knowledge and reserve force. Some of her realistic landscapes are almost as true and intense in black and white as the daring realisms of Courbet in color, but showing fine technical facility rather than imagination. Miss Annette Bishop, who died too early to win a general recognition of her talents, was gifted with a most delicate poetic fancy, and singular facility in giving expression to its dreams.
F. S. Church is an artist of imagination, painting in oil and water-colors, but perhaps best known for striking and weird compositions in black and white, often treating of animal or bird life. He is an artist whose advent into our art we hail with pleasure, not because his style is wholly matured or always quite satisfactory, for it is neither, but because it is inspired by a genuine art feeling, and yet more because it shows him to be--what so few of our artists have been--an idealist. What is art but a reaching out after the ideal, the most precious treasure given to man in this world? It includes faith, hope, and charity. To search after the ideal good, to live in an ideal world, to yearn after and try to create the harmony of the ideal, is the one boon left to man to give him a belief in immortality and a higher life.
The more of an idealist the poet or the artist, the nearer he comes to fulfilling his mission. The idealist is the creator, the man of genius; and therefore we hail with joy the appearance of every idealist who enters our art ranks, and infuses vitality into the prose of technical art, and inspiration into the dogmas of the schools. The most hopeless feature of American art has always been hitherto, as with our literature, the too evident absence of imagination; and wherever we recognize an idealist, we set him down as another mile-stone to mark the progress in art. It is through the idealists that Heaven teaches truth to man; and hence another reason why we regard with such importance the present school of artists in black and white. In no department is there more scope for the imagination than in the drawing of the pure line or in the suggestions of _chiaro-oscuro_. Therein lies the enormous power of the art of Rembrandt. He dealt with that seemingly simple but really inexhaustible medium, light and shade: in the hands of a master, potent as the wand of a magician to evolve worlds out of chaos.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "WASHINGTON OPENING THE BALL."--[C. S. REINHART.]]
Barry, Bensell, Shepherd, Davis (who is also known as a decorative artist), T. A. Richards, Eytinge, Frost, Merrill, Ipsen, Shirlaw, Lathrop, Lewis, Perkins, and Davison are other artists who have justly acquired repute for success in the department of black and white, or book ill.u.s.tration. Kelley has a sketchy style that is very effective, and of which the correct rendering on wood would have been well-nigh impossible with the old processes; but there is danger of carrying it to the verge of sensationalism. The facilities afforded by photographing a design on wood has seemed to be the occasion for aiding the development of a cla.s.s of artist-authors who both write and ill.u.s.trate their own articles for the magazines. How remarkably well this can be done is proved by such clever artists as Howard Pyle and W. Gibson, who display at once fertility of imagination and technical facility as draughtsmen. C. S. Reinhart has become widely known as one of the most versatile ill.u.s.trators we have produced. Excelling as a draughtsman, he brings to his aid an active fancy that enables him vividly to realize the scenes he undertakes to represent; and he seems equally at home in the portrayal of quaint old-time scenes, or the brilliant costumes and characters of the present day, combined with forcible delineations of scenery. The Puritan damsel or the belle of Newport may alike be congratulated when Mr. Reinhart ushers them before us with the grace of a master. The success of this school of artists, who have made their mark in the department of ill.u.s.tration, has doubtless been due in part to the increasing study of the figure in this country, and the greater facilities afforded for drawing from the life. Most of these artists are young men, whose abilities have been vastly a.s.sisted by their studies in life schools, which it would have been well-nigh impossible for them to find in the earlier periods of our art. Although perhaps better noticed under the head of Ethics rather than of aesthetics, we may allude to the surprising growth and influence of caricature-drawing in this country, represented by such able artists as Nast, Bellew, Kepler, or Cusack, as a.s.sociated with the development of our black and white art.
An artist who seems to combine the qualities we see more or less represented by other artists in black and white, who has already accomplished remarkable results, and gives promise of even greater successes, we find in E. A. Abbey. It must be taken into consideration that he is still very young; that he now for the first time visits the studios and galleries of Europe; that his advantages for a regular art education have been very moderate, and that he is practically self-educated. And then compare with these disadvantages the amount and the quality of the ill.u.s.trations he has turned out, and we see represented in him genius of a high order, combining almost inexhaustible creativeness, clearness and vividness of conception, a versatile fancy, a poetic perception of beauty, a quaint, delicate humor, a wonderful grasp of whatever is weird and mysterious, and admirable _chiaro-oscuro_, drawing, and composition. When we note such a rare combination of qualities, we cease to be surprised at the cordial recognition awarded his genius by the best judges, both in London and Paris, even before he had left this country.
If I have spoken strongly in favor of our school of ill.u.s.trators, it is because I think such commendation has been rightly earned, and to withhold it when merited would be as unjust as to give censure when undeserved. Criticism need not necessarily be the essence of vitriol and gall, as some critics seem to imagine it to be. A jury is as much bound to approve the innocent as to condemn the guilty.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON.]
In another department of our arts we also feel called to award praise to a degree that has never before been possible in the history of American art. I refer to the department of architecture. It is difficult to say exactly when the new movement toward a fuller expression of beauty in our civic and domestic building began; but we are conscious that about ten years ago what was for a time a mere vague feeling after more agreeable examples of architecture shaped itself into a definite and almost systematic impulse. The Chicago fire, and more especially the great fire in Boston, accelerated the action of the forces that already directed the people to demand n.o.bler forms and types in the constructions that were henceforth to be erected in our growing cities.
The advance of landscape-gardening, as evidenced in the Central Park of New York, and the public parks of other cities, doubtless aided to increase the yearning for material beauty. But whatever the influences at work, there is no question as to the results already apparent. I would not be understood as approving all the buildings of importance that have recently been put up in this country--very far from it. But, on the other hand, one cannot avoid seeing that the general tendency is toward improved styles, and that here and there groups of buildings or single structures have been erected which are at once elegant, commodious, and artistic; and, if not strictly offering new orders of architecture, presenting at least graceful adaptations of old orders to new climatic and social conditions in a way that gives them the merit of originality.
So prominent has this improvement in architecture already become in American cities, that already their external aspect or profile has begun to partake of the picturesque character hitherto supposed to belong only to the Old World, and to present that ma.s.sing of effect so dear to the artistic eye. We can ill.u.s.trate this by mentioning only two or three examples among many. One who looks toward Philadelphia from the railway station on the east side of the Schuylkill, may see a cl.u.s.ter of spires and domes centering around the Academy of Fine Arts, which is so agreeably composed that one would almost imagine the position of each to be the deliberate choice of a master in composition. Twenty years ago one would have looked in vain for any such harmonious outline of structural beauty in this country. The small, quaint fishing-port of Marblehead has also found itself suddenly transformed into one of the most pleasing cities of the Union, as viewed from the Neck across the harbor; for on the very crest of the hills upon which the place is built a town-hall has been erected, of brick, neatly faced with stone, and surmounted by an elegant tower. At once the old town has emerged from the commonplace into the region of the picturesque. The new structure has given character and symmetrical outline to the city by producing convergence to a central point of effect; and when the sun sets behind it, and brings its outline into bold but harmonious relief against a golden background, while a mist of glowing rays glazes the whole into tone, the view is in the highest degree artistic, and so resembles some of the scenes one so often sees in the Old World that he can hardly believe he is gazing at an American prospect.
We find a somewhat similar effect, but on a much larger scale, presented by the new Capitol, or State-house, at Albany. This city, as beheld from the opposite banks of the Hudson at Greenbush, has always been one of the most pleasing of American cities, situated as it is on several lofty hills, divided by ravines in which purple shadows linger when night is approaching; but the addition of the vast structure now in course of completion there adds greatly to the glory of the spectacle. It dominates over the city of eighty thousand inhabitants with superb dignity; and the whole place borrows beauty from it, and is elevated above prose into poetry. Again one is reminded of the cathedral towns of Europe, where some lofty, venerable minster guards through the ages the roofs that cl.u.s.ter below. Not that this pile, which is rather hybrid in its style, is to be considered equal to the masterpieces of old-time architecture; but it is a long step in advance compared with the civic buildings formerly erected and admired in our cities, and its presence at the capital of a great State cannot but have an enn.o.bling and educational influence upon rising generations.