FINE ARTS. 



321 



h, however, been pfrifa 1 oonptnutod for by 



a monmn. unmounted by a 



:il bronzo statue ot'liim :it Sir:;t!ii'.. 



Maroohetti. A niiir;il 



mom: -ii- James Outrani in Westrains- 



tho only other national memo- 

 i '!' \yc.rks ( .f tlii 

 as, or projcctc<l, tho 



mini! much lar^T, and includes a 



f Macauhiy, by Woolner, for 

 Cambridge; one of Gladstone, 

 .-I i>no of Mr. Pcabody, forLon- 

 Of Sir John Franklin, by Noble, ro- 

 in Waterloo Place, London, one 

 !1 tor Dublin; one of Andrew Marvell 

 nil. and one of James Watt, by Munro, 

 ii. No fewer than four monu- 

 ments are to bo raised to Lord Palmerston at 

 London, Southampton, Tiverton, and Romney, 

 and a statue to Cobden will soon be completed 

 in ( 'anulen Town, London. Other statues, in- 

 cluding some of colossal size, to public men, 

 tors, benefactors, etc., who are less gen- 

 known, mifrht be mentioned. Busts of 

 ;<>no, Cubdon. Thackeray, and Mulready, 

 the painter, intended, for public sites, are also 

 among the labors of the year. Of a more pri- 

 haraeter than these are Weekes's recum- 

 bent etliLTv of Archbishop Snmnor, in Canter- 

 bury Cathedral, a work of great merit, and 

 "U'oolner's design for a monument to Mrs. 

 Archibald Pool in the church at Wrexham. The 

 . which is to bo executed in high relief, 

 presents an affecting and beautiful realization 

 of the idea of a mother and child meeting in 

 :i after death. American plastic art was 

 not represented publicly in England during the 

 but some photographs of sculptures, by 

 , elicited high praise from the critics, 

 general complaint is made of the condi- 

 '.' public sculptures in England, and par- 

 ticularly of tho bronze statues, which are, for 

 st part, coated with opaque oxidation, 

 not unt'n quently assuming the appearance of a 

 sooty efflorescence. An exposure of two or 

 blacken the most brilliant 

 metal. Tho cause of this is attributed rather 

 to th', indifferent material employed, which is 

 far from being true bronze, than to tho in- 

 fluences of the climate. Some consolation, how.- 

 ia afforded by the fact that many of tho 

 s thus discolored are so bad in design 

 and workmanship, that it is quite as well they 

 should be "left in tho dark." It has been 

 -ted that tho experiment should be tried 

 nixing some of these works, and coating 

 them with fluid compounds, which resist moist- 

 ure, and set with a surface like transparent 

 enamel. Statues not exposed to tho elements 

 to fare equally ill in England. Those in 

 St. I'aulV Cathedral, in London, are represented 

 to be covered with dust and dirt-stains, and the 

 general condition of tho interior of the edifice, 

 where restorations, mural embellishments, and 

 other improvements are proceeding at a snail's 

 pace, is declared to be a public reproach. 

 VOL. vi. 21 A 



FRANCE. A marked peculiarity t,f the history 

 of the fine arts in France is the intimate rela- 

 tion \\ hicli they Mi-l:iill to the ^i>\ . I linn nt, and 



.troiuigi; which it extends to then, 

 the occa-ionot' the imperial fete of August i.",tlj, 

 pictmvs and -t.^tm^ v, ere. sent to no fewer thau 

 one hundred and twelve local museums, in ad- 

 dition to the works purchased for the galleries 

 of Versailles and the Luxembourg, and to those 

 .ited to churches and chapels in various 

 departments. Over seventy portraits of the 

 > mperor and empress were also presented to 

 public institutions, and the total number of 

 works of art thus disposed of was estimated at 

 upward of three hundred. A further stimulus 

 is given to artistic efforts by a system of rewards 

 and honors skilfully adapted to the popular 

 tastes and ambition. Without expressing an 

 opinion whether patronage of this kind can 

 subserve the purposes of aesthetic culture, it is 

 undoubtedly true that in respect to productive- 

 ness art flourishes in France beyond precedent. 

 Immense quantities of pictures and sculptures 

 are yearly produced, the quality of which K 

 on the whole, above mediocrity. Thus the com- 

 mittee of selection of tho annual art exhibition 

 held in Paris, accepted, in 1860, the enormous 

 number of 8,338 works as worthy of exhibition 

 in the Palace of Industry, though it is but 

 proper to add that comparatively few of these 

 were declared to bo within the competition for 

 prizes. The remainder were simply deemed 

 worthy of a place upon the walls, and presented 

 almost every phase of quality from respectable 

 to positively bad. The fact, however, that so 

 many pictures and statues are annually pro- 

 duced in the French metropolis, apart from the 

 thousands emanating from provincial artists, is 

 of itself interesting. Gor6me's contribution to 

 the exhibition was a painting representing Cleo- 

 patra introducing herself to Crosar in his tent^ 

 while ho is writing dispatches ; and Courbet 

 was represented by a landscape and a nude fe- 

 male figure, both of which attracted much 

 notice. Of an entirely different character from 

 this was an exhibition opened at the same place 

 in the spring, and composed mainly of works 

 by the old masters. It was entitled the " Expo- 

 sition Retrospective," and was suggested by the 

 British Institution, which exhibits borrowed 

 works by old painters in conjunction with those 

 of contemporary production. Tho "Exposi- 

 tion " contained about 200 pictures belonging 

 to sixty owners, and was very rich in examples 

 of tho Dutch and Flemish schools. Greuze, the 

 noted French genre painter of the last century, 

 was represented by seventeen works. Inspired 

 by the success which attended the great na- 

 tional portrait exhibition at Kensington, the 

 French government is about to form a simi- 

 lar one in a building to be erected in the 

 Champs E'y^-es, which, it is supposed, will 

 prove an '/. *' active resort during the Great Ex- 

 position/' ^i r 867. The portraits will be grouped 

 accordij ^no the age they illustrate. From an 

 an ahV Recently made, it appears that the gal- 



