the divine either in her head or attitude. Next to her, in not uncongenial contiguity, is 

 Dannecker's Ariadne on the Panther — exhibiting a vokiptuousness of position, com- 

 bined with an exquisite charm in the undulating contour of the picturesquely posed 

 figure. Here also is Kiess's Amazon in bronze — by no means a material for ropresent- 

 ' ing the soft figures of the female sex, but appropriate in this case, owino- to the o-reater 

 part of the composition being occupied by the rearing horse and attackino- wild beast 

 and to the circumstance of the attitude of the female rider representing nolhiuo- bul 

 masculine energy and daring. Finally, we shall say, we ha^ e that divinest of statutes 

 the Apollo Belvidere, in which life and noble power ray from every limb. Now if 

 those various pieces of sculpture are placed together, of course they must all be viewed 

 against the same background — namely, that of the wall of the room in which they 

 stand. But suppose — in order to bring out the peculiar qualities of various colors as 

 backgrounds — it were proposed, to us to take each of these sculptures by itself, and 

 as&ign to it a wall of such a color as would show it off" to the best advantage. Then 

 we would remark, in the first place, that whatever may be the case when a piece of 

 cloth is hung immediately around a statue, the walls of a gallery must be considered 

 as giving rise to effects, not of reflection, but of contrast. Accordingly, it will be 

 found that statues of white marble or stone, as well as plaster casts, stand out well in 

 a gallery whose walls are of a pearly-gray color. But suppose we wish to attain effects 

 not generally aimed at, with the several pieces of sculpture above named — then it will 

 be found that if you place the Venus de Medici against a wall of blue-gray, the statue 

 of the Cyprian goddess forthwith acquires a warm color, which many sculptors prize 

 so highly. Take the Ariadne, and place her in a room painted green, and forthwith 

 the deserted of Bacchus flushes all over with a faint rosy tint, such as she is seen in 

 her chamber at Frankfort, where the light is let in upon her through rose-colored glass. 

 For the divine Apollo, such tinting would be inadmissible. He must stand forth in the 

 simple majesty of pure white ; and in order to produce this effect, the color of the wall 

 should be chamois or orange-gray, which tends to neutralise any redness of hue in the 

 marble or plaster of the statue. As to the tone of color used upon the walls, cceteris 

 l)aribus, it ought to be lower the brighter we wish the sculptures to be. Finally, com- 

 ing to deal with Kiess's Amazon, and bronzes in general, it must be remembered that 

 the metallic alloy of which they are composed, yields two very different tints, — one 

 green, which the metal acquires by exposure to the action of the atmosphere ; the 

 other, the peculiar golden tint v/hich it possesses when not oxidised. If we wish to 

 heighten this green tint, the color of the walls of the gallery must be red ; while, if 

 we wish to bring out the golden tint of the bronze, the walls must be blue. 



Let us turn now to a picture-gallery. Here the first thing that strikes us is, how 

 badly paintings look when thus crowded together. Even supposing that they have 

 been arranged by a man of taste, and that they are not too numerous to compel him 

 frequently to do violence to his artistic feelings, still the ubiquitous melange of color 

 and the dazzling headachy effect of the multitude of gilt frames produces an impress- 

 sion upon the spectator by no means favorable to his appreciation of the pictures. In 

 truth, it is only the intelligent connoisseur who, in such a case can experience the effect 

 which the artist has wished to produce ; and this he does, not only by knowing the 

 best point of view, but by fixing his attention so wholly upon the work as to be 

 unconscious of the surrounding pictures, or even of the very frame. In fact, frames 



