work. Its strong point is neither the scraggy and wind-nipped apple-trees, nor the luminous sky nor the heavy soil, but the indefinable dignity and solemnity of its total character. In the old-fashioned sense of the word, it is not a composition. Pictorial tradition is violated; the parts are not distributed; the centre is full and the circumference empty. But the pathos of natural poverty and the poetry of an evening hour find supreme expression. The menace of unillumined night and of the morrow's toil, the sense of autumn chilling toward winter, the sadness of the lowly hillcrest and its bleak exposure, - these are the true subject of the picture, and along this scale the composition ranges. Art, too, is philosophy; M. Daubigny has fixed and proved something.

It is not without profit to pass from this work to the large view of the Grindelwald Valley," by Mr. J. Appleton Brown, lately exhibited in Boston, and now placed in the Athenæum, -a forcible example of the school of art which holds that a "rough likeness" is better than none at all. Mr. Appleton Brown's picture is a capital specimen of what the French call à peu près treatment. He has chosen his subject with an audacity which nearly approaches temerity, and he is in the nature of the case, as it were, pledged to be superficial. His philosophy is evidently not that of M. Daubigny, nor even that of Mr. Cole. His scene is the long vista of the Grindelwald valley, on a morning, we should suppose, of early spring; in the near distance rises from base to summit a broad section of the Oberland chain. The composition of the picture is simple, if anything in such a subject can be called simple; the long green hollow of the valley with its narrow flats and its concave acres of forest, and across it the great ice-wall of the Jungfrau and her sisters. No one who has gazed at leisure on Alpine snow-fields and summits, and been charmed, perplexed, and oppressed by the vision, but will sympathize with a clever painter's impulse to attempt a sketch of the matter. A sketch, however, in this case, is vain; the theme is a problem and to be treated as a problem. A mountain, we take it, is the most difficult object in nature to paint. Mr. Appleton Brown's work is a huge sketch, which would be decidedly pleasing but for its incongruous air of pretention to being a picture. The incongruity lies in the absence of the look of study. The Jungfrau- is it the Jungfrau ? rises

with a certain superficial effectiveness, but its divine and dazzling mass is altogether unmodelled. Those stupendous reaches of snow, of glacier, of pinnacle and chasm, have the unpardonable defect of being thinly painted. The same reproach holds good of the sky that lends them its light; it is shallow and vapid. Reverting to M. Daubigny's solemn treatment of his wayside earth-bank, we cannot but fancy that it is better to do a small thing richly than to do a large thing meagrely. We speak the more frankly because, very properly, the author of the "Grindelwald Valley" is sure of a number of admirers. By a large class of observers refined artistic work will always be unheeded; they are satisfied with broad hints. Such observers will derive a great deal of innocent pleasure from the belief that Mr. Appleton Brown has done justice to the great sweep of an Alpine valley and the light-bathed majesty of an Alpine peak.

NEW YORK.

THERE was a time, and but a few years back, when the Annual Exhibitions of the National Academy of Design in New York were representative of the art of the city and State. The younger artists looked forward for months with interest, often with eagerness, to the Exhibition rooms, as many young ladies look forward to the first ball of the season. To get their pictures admitted, to have them well hung, was something of an event for that year. "Varnishing-day " was a reunion of brother-brushes from far and near. It was on a good hanging that much of their reputation depended. It was from the Academy walls that they hoped to sell their works to rich amateurs. The art-critics of the newspapers reserved their thunder or their sunshine for that occasion above all others. That time has gone by. The Academy Exhibition is no longer one bright particular star, but one among several luminaries.

And yet the Academy of Design, in its standard of excellence, in the character of the works exhibited, in the thoroughness of art-tuition in its schools, and facilities afforded to pupils, is far in advance of what it was twenty or thirty years ago. Neither is there any diminution, but rather an increase, in the number of visitors attending the Exhibition. What is the reason of this decline of centrality? We know of none that proves anything against vitality and progress in the institution itself.

Perhaps the chief reason why our artists neglect to send their best works is the obvious one, that there are other exhibitionrooms in the city, such as Goupil's, Snedecor's, Schaus's, Bogardus's, and others (to say nothing of galleries in other cities), where they think they have a better chance of disposing of them. Then the custom among the artists of having receptions on regular days through the winter, at their studios, may be another reason.

It is certain that the Academy does not succeed as it once did in getting together thoroughly representative collections of painting or sculpture, and this notwithstanding the efforts of the council to obtain the best within reach.

Until within a year or two there was but one exhibition a year, in the spring. Now they endeavor to keep open a nearly continuous exhibition through the year, but still making the spring occasion the strongest. To this only fresh pictures of living artists, or those not before publicly exposed, are admitted. But to the fall and winter exhibitions, works old or new, fresh or well known, are sent, and can be withdrawn at the pleasure of the artist.

In the gallery this winter there are not many works of much interest. Mr. Bierstadt sends one picture, among the best, which would be a large picture for any but Bierstadt. For him it is small. It is called "In the Rocky Mountains "; probably no particular spot in the Rocky Mountains, or he would have specified. For it is known that Mr. Bierstadt, even in his largest and most popular views of that region, is not over-scrupulous in adhering to exact literalness, but aims to give the characteristics of such scenery, - a great error, in which Mr. Church preceded him in his "Heart of the Andes." One would think that when artists go so far, and into unexplored regions, for their material, they would take pains to bring back the exact reality, as nearly as possible, and be careful not to indulge too much in composition. This picture represents a lofty, precipitous mountain region in the upper and background, partly hidden by cold gray stormclouds, which cover one quarter of the whole canvas. Below the clouds, the sunlight breaks on a portion of the craggy mountain-sides, and on a lake, which extends, very still and clear, to the foreground. In the middle distance are forests of lofty trees, above which, on the left, rise a few bald cliffs, painted in muddy opaque gray.

In the foreground are a few deer on the brink of the lake. Like many of Bierstadt's less extensive canvases, the picture is cold and inharmonious in color, and wanting in transparent and luminous quality. There is an appearance of unreality, — of being too much composed; a striving after effect, without the power in color to produce it. In artistic skill it is inferior to another large but by no means remarkable picture by Sortel, a Frenchman, which hangs in the same room. The subject is similar (Alpine), and though colder in tone than Mr. Bierstadt's, yet, we think, is superior in harmony and in truthfulness of drawing.

Mr. De Haas, who has some reputation as a marine painter, exhibits two large canvases. The larger of the two represents Farragut's Fleet passing the Forts below New Orleans." It is a night scene, calm, with a smooth sea, which is crowded with large ships, steamers, and monitors. A good deal of firing is going on, and there is a fire blazing up from the shore. The scene is picturesque, but suggestive somewhat of scene-painting.

The other is a far better picture, in many respects, "The Ruins of Grosner Castle." A high rocky promontory juts out on the right, with an old castle on its summit; the rocks and the ruin bathed in the red light of the sinking sun. The sea rolls in with tremendous waves. A sloop is dashed, a wreck, upon the rocks. The sun nears the horizon, and glares beneath heavy masses of ruddy clouds, and tinges the distant waves with a fiery glow. The conception is admirable. The spectator feels the awful dash and roll of the heavy billows, which are admirably painted. But the sky is harsh and violent, as Mr. De Haas's skies too often are; and this injures the picture, which otherwise would be very fine.

Mr. Shattuck's "White Hills in October" is another large picture of a good deal of artistic merit. The sky is soft and delicate, the clouds tinted with the sunset. The distant snow-clad mountains are dreamy and tender. A mountain stream, with breaks of waterfalls, come down toward the spectator. On either side are hills, forests, and rocks. A portion of the woods is clothed in the crimson and vermilion tints of October. The lower half of the view is in shadow. The light across the hills in the middle distance is not managed with sufficient force and clearness. A bit of rainbow on the left hardly harmonizes

with the gay autumn hues, and cannot well be accounted for just there; for one sees no rain-clouds. Nor do the red tints of the trees quite harmonize with the cool shadows in the lower half. The foreground lacks strength of handling. But on the whole it is a very agreeable picture, and carefully painted.

Mr. Kensett, though always good, is never so good as in his out-of-door studies. Especially in his larger pictures he fails to reproduce the spirit and truth of his studics. The "Mountain Gorge" here exhibited shows that he conceives and feels his subject, for Kensett never paints without feeling, but it lacks something of the mystery he would convey in the gloom of the gorge itself. On each side of the chasm rise steep mountain-sides, broken with rocks and trees, just touched with autumnal variegation, gradually disappearing in the gloom below. There is a glimpse of a waterfall far up the ravine, also in shadow. Above the shadows rise distant aerial mountain-peaks, one behind another (the best part of the picture). The composition is very simple. We miss the strength of handling, especially in the foreground, that is so notable in the French school. This has a tendency to flatness and thinness.

Mr. Hall wearies us with his endless repetition of his one face, in his Spanish girls. He himself is not conscious of this sameness. Can it be that the Spanish peasants all resemble one another so strikingly? It is a pity that so genuine an artist should hurt his well-earned reputation by lapsing into his present style. He is becoming extremely mannered, and has fallen into a hard waxy style of flesh color, far less agreeable than his earlier manner. Mr. Hall's forests and flowers maintain their reputation, and we always greet them with pleasure.

There are two female heads that are noteworthy. One by Mr. Greene, a profile of a young girl, is extremely delicate and refined and charming in color, though somewhat conventional: the other is a strange head by Mr. Vedder, which certainly is wholly unconventional; a wide-eyed sibylline-looking creature, such as one might have met in a dream. It is remarkable, too, for a very skilful artistic treatment, in which there is no shadow, and just such a dubious light as one sees in dreamland.

The Annual Exhibition of the Artists' Fund Society was opened to the public at the

Summerville gallery on the 22d of January. This society was organized in 1859. and its objects are the accumulation of a fund for the aid of its members and their families, in case of sickness and distress. Each member is required to contribute on entrance a picture as initiation fee; and after that a picture annually, valued at not less than $75. The pictures are exhibited and sold at auction for the benefit of the fund. All pictures selling for over $100 return the surplus to the artist. The society numbers at present, I think, something over fifty members. The fund arising from these sales has accumulated to at least $60,000. At the death of any member, the interest of $2,500 is paid to his widow or heirs.

The exhibitions are always respectable; but most of the pictures are small, and, as a general thing, not the very best efforts of the artists. The present collection is of about average excellence. Among the best are those by Kensett, Whittredge, Loop, Pope, Bristol, Casilear, Cranch, Guy, J. G. Brown, and others.

The Fifth Annual Collection of the American Society of Painters in Water-Colors opened to the public on the 26th January in the rooms of the Academy. The exhibition strikes us as one of their very best. It comprises about three hundred and forty pictures, few of which are positively bad, while one might set down at least three fourths of the collection as positively good, and well worth seeing frequently.

We must confess to a feeling of cheerful exhilaration in stepping out of the room devoted to oil-paintings, into the watercolor department. It is like a change to a brighter key and an airier and lighter movement in music.

The establishment of this young watercolor society has had one wholesome effect in art-development; it has offered to the painters this very change of key, and has proved that some of them can do better in watercolors than in oils. It has brought them out of the old ruts in which they were running. It seems to have opened a field for color and effect, and a free brush, in a department where they are less fettered than in oil-processes and oil-subjects; and are better able, by clear washes of tint, to express their more evanescent and rapid passages of thought. At least so we incline to think. Yet water-color is more limited in power than oil-painting. It is less favorable to larger paintings or (unless by great

Among so many clever pictures, and charming "bits" of painting, Mr. S. Colman's are of the best. Besides a number of admirable morceaux from the East and from the West, there is a larger and more elaborate picture, which arrests the attention, representing a "Spanish Bull-fight in the Seventeenth Century." In a wide arena, whose seats are filled with gay crowds and surrounded by magnificent architectural piles, rising in warm rosy light, is what purports to be a bull-fight. The fight, however, is not the point of interest here, as perhaps it should be. Mr. Colman has made it accessory to the elaborate architecture, the gorgeous color, the effect of warm sunlight and shadow of a Spanish afternoon. The dominating idea is in the surroundings. The bull-fight is only thrown in for the sake of the figures; which, however, are not much better than landscape-painters' figures generally are. But the ensemble of the scene is striking.

There is a charming picture, of good size, by George H. Smillie, "Under the Pines of the Yosemite." Two large brown pine-trunks rise about thirty or forty feet to the top of the picture. Indians are encamping beneath. The twilight is stealing over the scene, and in the distance tower the crags of the Yosemite, picturesque and grand, and bathed in the last rays of the setting sun. The work is full of artistic skill and of poetical feeling, and gives us delightful associations with this romantic and unexplored region.

Several small pictures by Mrs. S. T. Darrah impressed us as exceedingly artistic in treatment and feeling. One is a rough but very suggestive bit of brown autumnal landscape, with leafless trees, - -an old deserted hut, and the sea beyond. Another, "By the Sea," is admirable for the impression it conveys to the imagination by the very simplest means. There seems to be little more than blots and washes of

gestive, so effective! Nothing but a bit of sandy sea-coast, dotted with tufts of brown dry grass; a dash of dark color representing a stranded boat, "old ocean's gray and melancholy waste" beyond, and over all a dull gray melancholy sky. Here is little to describe, yet how much that little expresses!

Among the oil-painters who do better in water than in oils may be mentioned Mr. Kruseman Van Elter, who exhibits two excellent works,-" Evening on Lake Henderson"; a simple lake scene, with rocks, and tall, overhanging beeches, and distant hills in an autumnal sunset: and "Home Scene in Holland," composed of old lowroofed cottages shadowed by trees, and flanked by hedges, with well-arranged figures of old women weeding, or hanging clothes.

Mr. R. S. Gifford contributes some interesting studies of Arabs, and Eastern boats; and Mr. L. C. Tiffany, who was his companion in his Eastern voyage, has some picturesque architectural pieces, and one very vigorous study of an old monk.

Miss Eddy exhibits an admirable s'udy of " Nasturtiums," and another of "Trailing Arbutus," and other flower-pieces, which are admirable in color and in artistic effect. Mr. W. T. Richards has two or three seacoast views of high finish and truthfulness, in a very low gray tone. Mr. J. W. Hill

has never done better than in two of his landscapes," On the Nyack Turnpike," and "View from Gallows Hill, Connecticut."

Among the water-colorists here represented, but whose works we have no space to notice, may be named as worthy of honorable mention Mr. H. Fenn, Mr. Giibert Berling, Mr. A. F. Bellows, Mr. Charles C. Ward, Mr. G. A. Gilbert, Miss F. Bridges, and Mr. D. Fowler. This last artist (a new name to us) contributes a large number of studies of flowers, game, etc., which are very bold and striking for color and cffect.

S Mr. Carl Gaertner's "Art of Sing

A ing

But

binding or tying together of notes. And is it then necessary to go to Bologna to find out what this binding or tying together of notes is? These excellent professors who pamper themselves so greatly in their own folly, and strew sand in the eyes of the public, that they may fix their price of tuition as high as possible, and make a stir and excitement, are often unable to teach rightly the A B C. If these gentlemen and ladies took pains to impart to their pupils the foundations of a good school, we should have singers enough who could understand how to study the solfeggio, and voices would then cease to be ruined by ignorant teachers, as is now too often the case."

"*does not purport to be a condensed translation of an important French work on the same subject, it would perhaps be impertinent to say the translation is very badly done; yet there is so much in the book that, although disguised by a clumsy and ungraceful diction, evidently owes its origin to Manuel Garcia's Art du Chant, that we can hardly treat it as an original work. Mr. Gaertner has transcribed page upon page of the Art du Chant and given it to the world as his own. Nearly all that relates to the technical part of the cultivation of the voice, all the exercises with the exception of six vocalises, are taken bodily from Garcia's work. much that is important is left out. The exercises which Garcia has explained in the most careful manner are in Mr. Gaertner's work put before the pupil almost without explanation. Of that part of the book which is original with Mr. Gaertner it is difficult to speak except in the vaguest terms. He flounders about in a curiously indefinite and aimless way among such truisms as "the power of song is, in its noblest, highest senses, marvellous, irresistible!" and other expressions equally ecstatic and from the point. At times the spirit of partisanship lashes him into something distantly approaching definite expression, and he belabors the advocates of ideas opposed to his own with great candor and considerable show of temper. Against the employment of the Italian portamento he is particularly violent. "Those vocal theoreticians and teachers," he says, "who consider the portamento as something mysterious, believe that, with the disappearance of giants and heroes,' the mystery has ceased to be comprehensible to us, unless we contrive wholly to appropriate their method of instruction. I differ from them, and can express my views through the following assertion: The German, who can boast of possessing the greatest musical master-works of the world, and who has been cultivated in the same, requires neither castratos nor Italian schools of Pistocchis, Berlochis, Berlachis, etc., in order to learn about the

The Art of Singing. By CARL GAERTNER. Philadelphia: Published by the Author; and Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

However little Mr. Gaertner and his countrymen may require Italian schooling (concerning which statement we must confess to some grave doubts), he most assuredly stands in need of an Italian or Latin dictionary to teach him that portare does not signify to tie, as he says "every musician of any degree of cultivation knows," but to carry. Some of his other statements in opposition to the French and Italian schools are more plausible because put more coolly and dispassionately. He says:

Duprez goes too far in the very beginning of his school, by directing his exercises (solfeggios) to be sung with religious character (religioso), with resignation, passionately, with transport, etc., etc. One ought to aim at making the sense and import of a composition clearly perceptible; and whilst we do so by rendering it correctly as it is written, there the idea is forced upon the composition. With us, the expression is a natural consequence of the understanding; there, it is introduced at pleasure as an imaginary supposition." Now this idea, namely, that expression in singing and playing is the natural consequence of the understanding or of sentiment, is one that always has been and still is received with great favor by a certain class of persons, especially by dilettanti and critics who know nothing of the ways and means of attaining to a correct and artistic interpretation of a composition, however well they may be qualified either by their general musical education or natural musical instincts to judge of the excellence or imperfections of