Saturday Press
The Saturday Press, vol 1 no 2, Oct 30 1858, LOC bound volume, 5 cents, Henry Clapp jr and TB Aldrich editors, 9 Spruce st, $2 year 4 pages
p. 2 James T Brady on free libraries for women, praises Bonheur and Hosmer but not Spencer. critical of Chapin and abolit. Has interesting disquis on Wms and Stevens trying to make prints rarer, Church and Lang on display. Guerrazzi novel advertises. Edw Everett speech on Washington for Mt Vernon fund (perhaps a good cause) just commonplaces, calamity to have his character fall into his hands, A portraiture by Everett is as bad as a portrait by Hicks.
skips to Nov 6 Trib, Times and Sunday Courier commend the paper. p.2 like Charivari, won’t puff—Bancroft inferior to Hildreth, Appletons New Am Encyclopedia is execrable (Dana and Ripley only pay $2 a page). Amiable writer in Eve Post says of Carpenter’s port of HW Beecher that it succeeds in making him kingly stand apart from other men, emotional nature is gorgeous, tropical, loves best to make his views genial with warmth of symp and affection, fathomless heart, Carpenter has succeeded in portraying. RB Minturn fr Appleton’s v symp to British in India. Like Benj Butler. Irving’s Life of Wash (being reissued by Putnam) as bad as Everett. excerpt NPW on opera fr Home J. Fitz Hugh O’Brien does there drama. p3 has list of Artists’ cards (ads, Bellows, Bierstadt, Casilear, Chapman, Colman, Cp Cranch Colyer, Cropsey, Dana, Mrs Dassel, Durand, Ehninger, Marg Foley, Anna Freeman, Geo Fuller, HP Gray, Gifford, Hays, Heine, Hicks, Huntington, Kensett, Lambdin, Lang, McEntee, Nichols, Pope, Rossiter, Shattuck, Stearns, Stillman, Tait, Waterman) Cosmo AJ and Picayune adv.
Nov 13 p1 Clapp in Paris, Young America coming closer to rest of world, oceans narrowing, United Happy Family in London set up in front of Nat Gall, where ptgs of all the schools together Nov 20 p1 anecdote of Geo Ripley being accused of lunacy. Harper’s monthly excellent. don’t care for Longfellow’s Miles Standish. Knick advertises. Nov 27 funny satire of palatial residences of the editors. Critical of Dana’s household book of poetry selections. Like Ehninger (several paragraphs praising his illus of Standish) and OW Holmes. doesticks advertises. Dec 4 Times declares it is indep, not a party press. Press in NYC been under control of party gamblers, thieves and ruffians, degraded, nobody believes a word they say. Hope Times will next declare its indep of advertisers, but that is too much to ask
skips to 1859
Jan 1 Trib of Dec 24 has leader on artistic destitution of White house, condemns port of Wash by Stuart, one of his masterpieces. Mocks The Century, which advertises. p2 Art Items: Miss Mary Freeman new studio, Stillman doing Longfellow. HK Brown doing Genl Scott, hope more sculptors will stay at home, devote themselves to the living and the present, rather than pretending to study ancient art while really soliciting commissions. Ward’s Kenton a brave, wild, indep spirit, simple but noble conception. His Indian statuette, forcibly told story, characteristic features. Effort again to buy Powers statue of America, Pierce declined to spend $20,000 for it Leutze, Huntington, Bierstadt, Ball, Artists receptions. The Great Republic Monthly and Eclectic Mag advertise.
Jan 8 Art Items: Nat Artist Assoc meet at Smithsonian to induce Congress to form committee of three of them to superintend govt art, large sums spent on Capitol and pub bldgs in wall fresco sculp and ptg that the artists claim are disgracefully bad, wish to rescue décor fr hands of ignorant workmen heretofre executed them. Capt Meigs has been in charge. Hubbard. 10th St studios, Dodsworth artists reception, fine coll, Spiranza by Greene v lovely, WO Stone port popular Lambdin Shattuck Durand many others, all praise. Akers, Palmer doing Gov Morgan. Clipping I’ve labeled with this date re an Association says Huntington, Gray a gem, Baker girls favorites, Shattuck peculiar effect of storm light, another with incident and detail, romantic, Durand elab studies that still avoid the unsentimental and insignif detail of preRaph, large pic by Wenzler attn to its fidelity, Dana several pictque but so much French mannerism. Tait, James Hart, Coleman, Williamson Suydam Hubbard Ehninger all good. Cite a Boston paper praising Page.
Jan 15 Leaves fr a lady’s portfolio on art and taste in furnishing rooms, attn to decorum, corresp of parts to form a whole. Gets the new cyclopedia for cant about Caucasian race, all false p3 Art items doing a series on Art Treasures of the City, starts with NY Gall of Fa, esp Durand’s solitary oak, Cole, Vanderlyn Inman, Jarvis etc. Elliott, Durand and Bryant, Huntington in Appletons bldg, scientific men of Am.
skips to Feb 12, deny in response to letters having any politics Feb 19 p1 Thomas Ewbank on slavery, machines will replace them, so no need for legislation. Copy discussion of whether Atlantic Cable Co was a humbug. Feb 26 Tuckerman clever, but dreary style, Barnum attacks Thackeray in his London letter in Home J and editors apologize Mar 5 NAD has big ad, as does Townsend’s Cooper with Darley, Mayo’s Civiliz in NY with chapter on Art in NY, as does NY Gall of FA. p3 long Domestic Art gossip: Leutze, Hicks, Rossiter and Mignot, Casilear, Gifford Suydam Kensett Nichols Durand bust of TB Read by Jackson, Wm Hunt admirable, steps taken to improve NAD by widening its membership. Intl Art exhib coming, Leeds auction, all this taken fr the Crayon, some more fr Times, Von Beest mentioned p4 repro from Eve Post auction laawsuit with a painter. Cozzens art coll (did Sturges last week? Leutze Huntington Gray Weir Hicks Rossiter Page Hinckley, example of better to collect modern than old masters
Mar 12 Times is also crit of Everett, they are hostile to Sickles, Constellation has Park Benj withdrawn from it has become ponderous like the Century, Great sale of Ptgs at Nat Acad rms, by Leeds, Winterhalter and Am artists. p3 gives Times account of Artists Reception in Boston other clips p4 art treasures of Aspinwall and Belmont, former designed by Renwick, fr Harper’s weekly. doesn’t seem to describe Belmont’s. Mar 26 Fry writes for Trib, Wilkins for Herald, Seymour for Times (on drama)
skips to April 16 1859. Clapp sole editor. p2 NAD review, going to do all the works, are knowing, glad more women are contrib. Beard better than most copyists of English prints of animals, studies wild squirrel fr nature; Beaulieu just copying Stanfield, flimsy conventional and false caricatures with gross plagiarisms, typical of a class of marine painters. E Moran and others also borrow too much from him. Elliott successful (ex Gov Throop). Huntington’s? 647 Doubtful Bill an improvement on his former works. Shattuck. Cropsey has vigor but is hurried and slurred. Stone’s port of Ehninger excellent. Suydam faithful, gem, no blandishments. Tait is expressive, will be a favorite. Miller lscape is conscientious. E Johnson beaut. Roswe tender. Mocks the port of Ex pres Tyler, dislikes him and the current Congress. Boughton witching time, exquisite. Elma Gove of Nichols finished. Mrs Hildreth pure. Bellows port bad. Miss Freeman exquis. Launt Thompson unequalled. others unnamed, mocks a ministerial portrait, and Hicks of Dr Kane as a tropical scene in the Arctic, with amummy caricature, shows how badly an artist can do. excerpts fr Xtian advocate. love Darley.
Apr 23 p2 very crit of Laura Keene and Wallack. NAD notice 2: Durand is characteristic, poetical feeling, midway betw lawless sketchy and photog minuteness. May melodramatic, French, but tells story. like Huntington portrait, Boughton successful. A Country stable is ptd in the henroost school of the French. Stearns good. Hicks port of Youmans looks dirty, Miss Barstow lscapes clever. 19 women contrib 48 pics. Boutelle beaut but marred by slovenly touch, Kensett vacant and uninteresting. At Home is also of hen-roost school, but clever. Banvard insipid and weak, should have been rejected, Stillman’s Adirondack Club (Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Agassiz and others), mocks several, a Joan of Arc, Shayer rural manufacturer, Wittkamp. Mentions various others. Jesse Talbot unusually gd,
Missing May 1. May 7 excerpts Bigelow fr Eve Post on Wm Page’s Venus. don’t trust people (majority) to rule, need a tyrant like Jackson, if he’d been a Whig instead of a man, they’d have liked him. Democracy a failure. Parties too.
NAD notice no. 3 WT Richards minute study, but only a blackberry bush. Banvard looks like stock pics of Am Inst that they hang on walls to fill vacancies. Wm Hart soon palls, insipid and tricky. Bellows Elm is poetic, pleasing. Coleman lovely. Ingham glad to see him again, king of finish, the outside of things, sickly childhood, Sonntag generic valleys, the oppos of preraphatelitism, rude and ignorant hints at commonplace facts, vague, flippancy of handling passes for style. Shipwreck formless, shapeless. Dusseldorf is fatal to excellence, profoundly conventional. Casilear fresh. Loop charming. Gray’s Toilet large, finest spirit. McEntee able, Lambdin in execrable taste, TB Read two green monsters disporting in green spirit land, Dana clever, Inness best sky in coll, Yewell nice but resembles French ptgs mediocrities, like many in exhib. Heine shld have been rejcted. Harding self port gd, Healy gigantic provokes indelic comment should not be exhib. Geo Hall’s Don Quixote not humor or sentiment. caricature of Bellows. Van Schendall Fruit Market excellent. E Johnson sold Negro Life to Corcoran.
Heart of the Andes his best, not as daring as Sunset in So Am or astonishing as Niagara, but more quiet power and truth, new beauties, accuracy, nothing struck in, but accuracy does not destroy poetry, should be in a public coll
skips to May 28 1859, p. 1 NAD no 4 SS Osgood an academician put on highest range, while another academician’s numerous inferior lscape works monopolize eyeline. used to be better, Baker sumptuous, Oddie invests in amber and ochre, Thorpe successful, Boyle a gman as red man, Elliott Man of Hair with solemn tailoring, least interesting. Cafferty excellent. bierstadt clever after most snuffy manner of Dusseldorf, all steeped in vulgar monochrome, lacks fresh unbiased Am eye, clouded by artificalities of lowest school in the world, Dusseldorf. Thirty clerical portraits with enormous heads, self esteem and combativeness. Rossiter modest and chaste, Wideveld hung too low, Heade literal, cold and disagreeable, almost preRaph, Loop exquisite, Casilear beautiful, Mount rare perception of character, but no pictorial grace, not now easily forgiven, Ver Bryck Suggestive, Dana mere French style. 682 surprised such a bad pic by Cropsey, slovenly, Wenzler pleasing
and Art items, Heine has $10,000 govt commission for historical ptg for Algerine war for Capitol at Washington. Ruskin liked Leslie, a bro in law of Henry C Carey of Phila. T Stewart bought Powers Greek Slave for drgy goods store, will make splendid model for shawls and things, Art is looking up, Douglas & Sherwood should purchase Heart of the Andes. Prince of Wales ordered statue Puck fr Hosmer, Church got $3000 fr exhibition, Gifford sold Mansfield Mtn for $600
repub Edmonds on spiritualism fr Trib.
June 4 has Horatio Alger story. 11 p3 art items Capitol commission HK Brown, Kensett and lambdin of Phil. Crayon praising Leutze’s big port of Seward for MO Roberts. Recommend Ruskin’s two paths to decorators of capitol. Mocks Bancroft at NY Hist Soc. Derby’s art inst advertises, as does Ritchie/Darley. Jun 18 Edward Farrence, L’Epoque, Republican paper 25 GH Avery joining Press Art Items: TB Read, Bierstadt, Ball, Hosmer, Edwin white returning, gives long Crayon review of Heart of Andes, they don’t think it’s unified July 9 story fr Henry C Watson re his family. Art items p4. Jul 23 Art Items mostly clips
Aug 6 p1 The Twaddle of Business: in NY business the only legit sphere of occupation, anyone else a sort of fancy people, esp lit and art folk, of no account, yet wants his daily paper ad a book or pic in his house, tho never opened or seen. Church Heart of the Andes expects to realize 20,000, so do Dickens or Meyerbeer, still no respect as legit. Businessmen are real loafers, fr Willis Muscical world. Herald and Times wrong, Louis Napoleon is a tyrant. p. 4 lots of clipped Art Items: fr Trib on Wash Monument, absurdity and ugliness of design, column thru little house, stake thru a pumpkin, repulsive to gd taste and artistic sentiment, insults his memory, blocth in lscape, have new art commission pick a plan. Descrip of Hammatt Billings’ monument to pilgrims at Plymouth, very allegorical, Page’s Venus in London tries for ideal, haughty and triumphant beauty, well modelled, coloring attractive. Phillips of Bond st selling Hiram Powers greek slave, fr the Critic, very hostile to the statue Aug 13 Albion dislikes press habit of ironic laudation Aug 27 Geo Eliot fr Knick
Sept 10 Howells poem (and Atl Mo advertises) 24 Pfaff’s advertises. Art notes: Edwin White to exhibit at Parker and co, English and French pics on exhib at Acad chance for comparison with our own progress, specimens of kind preRaphaelites are shocking conservatists, don’t wonder they are shocked, and those who believe truth of their principles are mortified, but fine Bonheur and Stanfield and Fr genre. promotes Ritchie and Darley as doing work of preRaph do so badly, our delaroche
Oct 1 all know Herald v wicked but Col Webb can’t close it by preaching agst it, need to get up a better one.ruskin is to art as Carlyle is to philosophy, fr Jasper, Private opinions publicly expressed Oct 8 Cooper Inst descr. Art items p 2 Child’s praise of Hosmer’s Zenobia quoted Oct 15 p2 long excerpt fr London Sat Rev on Heart of the Andes p. 2 long attack on Powers’ Webster in Boston, Poetical Justice, Powers overrated, and this the worst, cheap oration by Everett, shabby pantaloons, wonder it has not slunk away, it looks like the prof Webster who committed murder. wirepulling reputation. 22 Ada clark 29 transl Balzac’s the unknown masterpiece 29 p2 Individuality of Genius, poetry ptg and sculpt a trinity, offspring of imag and genius, should not follow systematic and mathematical paths, worst foe of art is hero worship, veneration for the old proscribes true orig in the new, poetry and sculp suffer worse, but architecture too blindhomage to classical, a poor Parthenon more admired than orig design, modern will alw be inferior to ancient while we try to imitate it, when we see a statue of rare merit, should consider concept rather than production, thirst for plagiarism fetters imag. Ada Clark on Page’s Venus, not immodest, but not a work of high art, female viewers pretend not to look, what if it had been an Apollo? all the galleries advertise, church, page, goupil etc
skips to Nov 12 1859 Stedman poem, Wm Winter. Ada Clark likes Keene. Art items: p2 Whitman Ehninger, Bonheur. Powers, Sontag, Palmer advertise
Dec 3 Wash Irving dies, true lit man, will be remembered, was beloved. Quarreling with Sunday Courier. Dec 10 Art Items p1 large pic sold $400 claiming to be a Rubens Susannah, one of 4, one in Bryan Gallery and this the fourth, once offered by Inman for $1000. On sale at Goupil’s an Inman sketch fr 1839, undoubted orig, charming, fine fancy, fr Eve post. Cropsey letter fr another paper p2 Palmer’s Captive, true artist, highest pathos, moral grandeur, nude, lovable, not classic 17 notices Frank Thompson’s Vanity Fair. Thorvaldsen, Rossiter etc adds. 24 Robt W Pearsall joining Press.
1860
Jan 7 Whitman review, p1 and 3, signed with star. Notices chromo of C of Death, big ad. 14 more whitman p1 and 2, 21 Whitman satire, and p. 2 on typos in him. Belle Brittan a man, and a colonel. fairly feminist. Jan 28 Waif fr Washington long praise of Cass’ antiquities, beat art glories of NY, better than Capitol, curiosities too. Personne (Wilkins) been their drama crit for awhile. p4 fr Even Post on Raphael’s cartoons engraved, true way to preserve art is to popularize it
Feb 4 1860 p2 reception at Dodworth’s most beaut people those who love art, defends the arts as luxuries but moral goods, help eliminate vulgarity. Reception inclu Morse, Bancroft, Bryant, Field, Bellows, JT Headley, RG White, John D wolfe etc, we visited EDE Greene, girl caresssing a dove, vague and dimly suggestive, Leutze Venetian carnival, beaut and sensuous women, Huntington true and counterfeit in country store, banknote, drawing marv, new fidelity of detail, Baker ideal head a gem, delicious women, WO Stone similar, Edwin White full length port of Old Sam, artists recog as porter and man of all work at Studio bldg in Tenth st, character of this useful and respected personage excellently expressed in gd natured dignity of features and attitudes, not less artistically conceived than studies of E Johnson of negro subj fr last year’s NAD. HA Loop, Calix, Boughton, Gifford Wm James Hart,Shattuck Bellows Hall Hays. Missed Launt Thompson. Crawford’s dancing Jenny et al at dusseldorf gall advertise. Feb 11 p4 Great Oyster Artist fr Crayon, joke on Ruskin style of art crit, absurdity of ideal beauty 25 Darwin origin of species revolutionary
Mar 3 1860 p3 takes fr NY Times account of Dodworth’s reception, praises Warren marine views, young artist fr nautre not other men’s studies, went to sea around the mast, also Dix, Wm Hart, Staigg, Maur Hart, Shattuck Boughton Nichols Gifford, remarkable icebergs by Gignoux, Sontag, Kensett, Baker Hall Carpenter Stone Bellows Loop Huntington authors pic Geo Hall, Cafferty, raptures abt E Johnson’s Washington kitchen Mar 17 like Marble Faun but crit of puffery of Am artists p2 in preface and body of the work Mar 31 p2 Fine Arts Closing Reception at Tenth st studio bldg, gorgeous til late, Leutze conversion of Eliz, happy stroke of allegory, valuable, Boughton winter scenes, Lambdin Wm Hart, McEntee winter, Gifford Coming Rain Launt Thompson Hays Gignoux Shattuck TB Read Longfellow, Bierstadt rocky mtns Mignot Nichols new era in Am art
Apr 7 big ad for Derby’s life of Stephen Douglas 14 p2 NAD, no single work of marked importance, most striking is Leighton’s Romeo and Juliet, 241 human and poetic study of hi order. May v characteristic, his types don't command genl interest, tho not sentimental, wild animality. Johnson excellent of its kind, unimpt only in comp with his grand Pestal and Ital girl of last year. Leutze heroine sainted in aureole, not elevated thought, adventitious, his battle scene 573 confused, lacks commanding center. Lang Queen not quite convincint. White girl at prayer simple rather than vigor, Sick Boy coarse, ugly repulsive, Lambdin pleasing fidelity to everyday life, faces commonplace tho. Greene unsubstantial. Meyer Jester strong. Oertel feeble in 181, better in bear hunt. Saintin well. Hubbard more than usual vigor, admirable grand, Gifford nothing new, exaggerates mtn in his larger work, his 317 happiest effort. Heade forcible common effect of sun and gathering storm, luminous and courage, freedom, homeliness in contrast with sentimental school. Coleman and Shattuck still desire to embellish, truculent critics will never like. 547 Bierstadt not impressive in proportion to skill and labor bestowed on it, laacks unity, cant enjoy grandly designed mtns for buffalos and trees, poet doesn’t control ptr. Richards. Geo L Brown unequal, smells of studio and old painters, but sketches fr nature great vigor. Delessard. Huntington portraits 448 clever counterfeiting, character rendered broadly, not deep or subtle. Wenzler photog imitation, verisimilitude. Wm Beard better than Tait or Hays. p3 has Art Items
April 21 1860 p2 dislikes Sunday Courier editor. NAD review no2, May’s picture lives, girl frank and abandoned, untamed bold has a heart and loves. Leighton grows on us. Oertel bland, passionate and deeply relig but not inflammatory like Leighton’s 182, a strong pic, Delilah makes Page’s Venus a mummy. Superstition fatal in Art as in Religion, reverence for old pictorial masters devours our young men and devastates the galleries, also degrading is running for subjects to the book must be told what to admire, becomes a translator. Better is Johnson’s Pestal or Mating 465, he goes to the centre of his subj, liberates the old mystery, has depth. Newell sincere. Howland has more fire. Lang flounders, his scenes fr life better like Little Vagrants and Bridget. L Thompson drawing room sculpture of quality does not inebriate. finish is a wet blanket on enthusiasm, the tools invented for it cut the artists’ throat. Lemmens spirited, McEntee freedom diff intention than Gifford and Hubbard, no hi poetic motive but fresh and genune. Gignoux and Sontag, small shot. Bellows too, indifferent respectable as is James Hart, marines mediocre too. Huntington not gd lscapes, nor Harry Brown, Dix and Shattuck not fotunate, Gl Brown heavy no untity or largeness weak. Author seems different than one who attended the receptions
and p3 has art items on Hosmer, Elliott cutting his portrait out, Hicks head of Seward.
Apr 28 1860 p1 A National Pic fr Phila press on C Schussele’s Andrew Jackson befre Judge Hall at N Orleans. p2 Picture Hangers’ Art reprinted for the benefit of Elliott, Ars celare artem. Critical of the Sunday Times’ scandal mongering. A good move: to change the constitution and management of the NAD to make it a Nat Acad of Art. Notices newWorld, first class daily, wont print anything to disturb the nerves or engender worldly thoughts. Spalding of Courier and Enquirer, RG White, and Marble of Evening Post will assist, will be well printed, solid, learned, conservative, prudent, pious and eminently uninteresting sheet, catering for a class of people already partially provided for by the J of Commerce.
May excerpt Stowe fr Independent. May 12 p2 Art about town: Goupil’s much trumpeted Schwartze First Day of Worship, Dutch masquerading as Pilgrim Fathers, but puritan iron severity oak not in soft affectionate pastor. difficulty of rendering a foreign history. Leutze’s ludicrous Bryant’s Fairest of the Rural Maids as a strapping German peasant girl with a jug. Crawford’s dancing jenny at Duss v ugly little fig, ill drawn, clumsy, ungraceful and uninteresting, has made many no better than this, nothing worse than boy in design for pediment, ugly. No unconsciousness of childhood. Should have made fewer statues, His Am Mechanic is not a mechanic, his Indian is not an Indian, his work is not final, exhaustive or deepen our knowl. Lander’s bust of Hawthorne vigorous in material traits, not lonely introvert of orig, this a more easily moved and communicative public man, not retiring poet, charm of Hawthorne is shade and privacy away fr highway and garish sun, aspect should have mystery, don’t feel his soul here. Evangeline ok. Akers pearl diver undeniable merit, knowl and feeling if not commanding, not a literal copy of actual flesh like the Cenci of Hosmer.
Crawford a graceful commonplace, but better than mechanical Powers, Grk Slave a form without motive. Palmer at least has flesh and blood, are pretty girls undressed, sexual traits at center of interest. Ward’s Indian maybe closest to Pearl Diver, ugly in racial accuracy, but wildness of woods, rude energy find so little in the galleries, a piece of out of doors as the best, that is the most definite, imagery of Walt Whitman. Akers more vague, shadowy. Brown vigorous.
p3 Art items, Holman Hunt, WW Story, Thom Ball, Leutze etc p4 sale of engravings in London
May 19 1860 JW Watson a contrib also to Harper’s starting his own mag The Week.
p. 2 engages in Stillman’s quarrel with Boston Transcript over merits of Crawford and Brown; agrees with Stillman in Cosmo AJ that Crawford is deficient in composition, Powers Greek Slave is weak in anatomy and Palmer’s is entirely external. Don't agree with Stillman that Greenough had great powers.
Trib long ago called Brown’s De Witt Clinton out of proportion, not true, Stillman is right to like it. It is awkward and stiff, as Brown had to change his design to meet demands of a committee, but more moral energy than Crawford’s Washington, which just has dash of a Leutze picture. Strength not grace, where Palmer’s Moses suggests the drawing room. Our art degenerates into prettiness and pettiness, rises only as hi as the picturesque, Crawford is the stump orator of art, no internal truth. Greenough’s Wash scarcely better than Rembrandt Peale’s, Powers only has literal fidelity, painters learn tricks, imitate, inoffensive, a manly effort as in Clinton to at least try—as with preRaph, a hardness and awkwardness, of all originality
May 26 1860 Illus News will have a port and bio of Whitman. p2 The Nude: the art of the drinking saloon is never a public influence, feeble and base, and one of higher pretensions in proportion to emphasis with which it regards the body. There are faces which shld be veiled, under prohib indecent exposure. Sensual art disguised by romantic association, but lifted by any energy, Gray elevates it by color, Greek by perfect form, French piquancy, fire inLeighton’s Delilah, most offensive when affects to convey a moral lesson as in Huntington or Rossiter’s wise and foolish virgins. Page’s Venus is destitute of vitality, Greek Slave empty and cold. Stillman wants to excommunicate Palmer in Crayon, but tame and sweet school girls pose no danger to morals, no passion in monstrous bust of Resignation, his admirers think the body parts are delicious, fondles innocence. White Captive the action not justified by her habit, see what she has been, prefer Thorwaldsen.
Jun 2 1860 p2 Imitation in Art: on Church’s heart of the Andes, marvellous parts, perfect aerial effects, lacks key note of feeling or sight, middle ground is a new picture, mtn feebly drawn, not sublime enough as diluted by trifling incidents, first place among pics of the second rate, is not Nature felt. Raymond’s exposure of Greeley’s office seeking shows he and Honest Abe all just hungry for power. Jun 9 Imitation Again, Heart of Andes a sensation picture, like Bierstadt and Mignot. Prefer Hubbard’s large pic at Acad, charm pervades, tho feeble in represenation beside Church, or even Bierstadt, GL Brown, Mignot McEntee Jas Hart, but his feeling embodied in a fact where church is inanimate body, Hubbard has great soul, Gifford too conveys whole expression. Kensett suddenly got it, pervasive feeling.
Jun 16 p3 fr Vanity Fair on the World, mocks its virtuousness. Isnt Courier and Enquirer xtian?
p. 2 Pics at Goupils: Gerome great tho Caeser a bit coarse. More love for Leighton but Lambdin an empty trap for emotion. Prefer Delaroche. twilight in the Wilderness by Church v characteristic, sky a masterpiece, left side admirable, foregrd striking not grand, but has insubordinate beauties like the pine tops on the hill, to be seen and admired rather than felt
Jun 23 p2 Character v Sentiment in Art: genuine ideality takes a hold on the actual, Bonheur’s Horse Fair. Crawford’s Mechanic a graceful reclining fig, aspiring, genius superior to his situation, not the inventor of the cotton gin, the practical man not the dreamer, this is Crawford in masquerade not actual mechanic. Scheffer sometimes has vigor of characterization, his Satan in the temptation is incarnation of Wall st, Washington and commercial xtianity, but generally weak. Only Whitman good.
Jun 30 Whitman and Am Art: staple of all our art poetry picture sculp is effect, ornament and sentiment, no bread and water of thought. least suggestion ofNature unadorned felt with delight, children of Frere, horses of Bonheur, negro life of Johnson, Margaret of Darley, but not Venus of Page. True ideality enjoys broad average vital quality of men and things as we meet them in the world. Whitman comes naked among the poetasters. Never preaches, never ornaments, never prosaic, his habit directly opposed to our poetic and plastic art.
World is dismal and dreary, ordinary reader must turn to Daily News and J of Commerce. p3 takes item abt a female Hogarth in London fr Trib
July 7 1860 Edw Everett foremost representative of conventionality, typ of Boston, but also Neal, Sparks, Bryant, White and Tuckerman, Bowen and Ticknor, inflated bladders, hollow and artificial pretenders, emasculate twaddle.
p2 Art: the celebrated sculptor who sets up in the public square a graven image no more like a horse than a hippo, has no point nor bone muscle artic organ in place form or proportion, has a soul above them, assures southern congressmen that art has nothing to do with these, and so what standard is left for the congressmen, who votes $50,000 for another statue as supporting civilization (Mills?) Not 50 men care or know whether any truth or what truth has been told by Allston Greenough and Powers. Inability to render facts is inability to render life, organiz is needed for spirit. we love Dickens and hate Thackeray, judges of all art that makes a personal appeal, but the ptrs and sculp cannot make and sustain a critic, nobody cares, no bread or meat of the mind.
Artist asks for duty on imported pics, tho people love Frere, Delaroche, duty won’t shut them out, won’t help sell the bad. Ruskin advises painters must swear to render nothing but what he has seen and felt and known. True ideal is to make of ourselves men and women such as we don't meet in the gallery, a solid ordered world such as we do not see.
lots on London auctions
July 14 p3 NAD: Japanese ambassadors visited? Mozart hall sold for new bldg, Cummings holds design classes in his studio, about 1000 students, fr Trib
p.2 Art and Politics: newspapers changing, public protest agst Art Items, journalism in the interest of artists not Art, absurd and mischievous notices of annual exhibs have died out of leading dailies. Rotunda been adorned with commonplace respectable compositions, Persico did Columbus playing baseball, Greenough unforunte, naked Jupiter with head of Wash in moral soap, feeble backwoodsman, antiques and weak action, blank, no real fight, but right to give him the opp, should have given opp to Powers Crawford Brown; Mills sheer lobbying, an imposition.
-incompetent and irresponsible Engineer in charge, appropriated money for frescoes, bronze and trumpery, foreign mechnics, no general plan, too much ornament, only a couple Am sculptors. Artists proposed a commission of experts, agree it would be a working National school of art, stimulating them, commpetition, but the Commission has disappeared thanks to scoundrels. Last kick of southerners who think art is Northern?
jul 28 Willis was behind the Tupper interest in this country, thru the Mirror
Aug 18 defends Lola Montez agst slimy twaddle of commonplace morality
$2 year, Henry Clapp sole name on masthead. no fan of poet Street. Aug 25 p4 takes fr Times letter re Art in Newport, Rowse, ehninger Hunt, Staigg, Wright by Spray. (also excerpts fr Herald, but not on art) Sept 8 mocks Ledger (which publishes Everett) praise of Geo P Morris new poems, they dislike it Sept 15 more attack on doggerel in Ledger, Everett, S Cobb, Morris Sept 22 p1-2 Weekly Anglo African accuses Sat Press of first being silent on slavery, and now going over to it by attacking anti-slavery World. Appletons publish anti abolition stuff too. Series on libraries (includes Geo Law’s bought by contract), FS Cozzens, owner of West Point Hotel, see New Am Cyclo, friends With Charley Elliott, Lewis Clarke. New Inst of FA: Derby’s architect Hamilton, real sculp to ornament the front, emblematical female figs, happy idea, relieve monotony of city arch. reads like a press release. 29 Sunday Courier puffs Geo Morris as do illiterate dailies
Oct 13 1860 p2 approp James Buchanan will also write for Ledger. Modern Painters new volume, very enthus praise pr takes Wm Page on the PreRaphs fr the Independent
Oct 20 p1 take fr London Athenaeum on Renaiss art. Whitman similar to Tupper—but editor disagrees p2 The American Bunsby, an all pervading spirit, as an author sweetly twaddling in The Weekly Clarion Blast of Virtue, as an Artist, celeb the memory of buried greatness with caricatures in marble and brass Oct 27 James T Brady pub with Appletons
Oct 27 p3 Jarves Coll: at Derbys, if united with Duss and Bryan’s quite a coll p4 has fr Independent Wm Page’s Ital schl of ptg
Nov 3 1860? p3 Leader has Personne’s opinion of Cushman, has vigor like Forrest, that’s it, Tuckerman part of the Mutual Admiration Society style of writing (everett and No Am Rev) p2 Vagrants: indig Hawkins angry at Trib for descr Albert Van Beest as a vagrant artist, Hawkins denies it, Trib says he is impertinent. Sympathize with Hawkins statement that Trib is medium of circulating so many unjust and untrue statements inrln to artists and we would add persos nd things generally, don't expect Trib to stray into paths of decency. Van Beest our best marie ptr, his private life his own, vagrancy may be beter than respectability, th eonly g\alternative for a gman, the imperial indiv who has a true life, the Unconventional Man. To them belong the laurels. p4 more Wm Page on Ital schools
Nov 10 1860 p1 satire on Artists Receptions by Robinson. Briggs there, but whole is not too funny. p4 takes fr Architects and Mechanics Journal article on Art Connoisseurs, bores, conceit, have memorized a few of Ruskin’s transcendentalisms, has nature for his guide, some impracticable crotchet, nothing cld repres purity but perfect whiteness for ex. doesn’t value labor or skill. Nov 24 reviews Mrs Jameson’s writings on art, lays no claim to originality, but better for her careful reading. anti-slavery is unmeaning howls. p3 notice Avery’s engr of Morning in the Tropics, excellent
Dec 1 1860 last issue in volume. p2 long story on Fanny Osgood, was generally petted and praised, poetry has uncommon merit, sprightly delicacy grace tender, but not remarkable. Personal magnetism, loveliness of character. Art and Criticism: finest pic ev exhib at 42 east 14th st, Wertmuller’s Danae, still true for our own times, Express objects to the subject. Greeks didn’t have eough newsp editors. Sunday Courier doesn’t like it, has no taste in art.