Maps and Pictures 



And now there comes a quiet artist quietly forward, who calmly 1857 

 puts his work down before gazing Broadway, and begs leave to urc 

 differ from the critics and the public — and in the twinkling of 

 an eye wins all the world over to his side! People go and look 

 at Mr. Church's Niagara and come away only wondering that 

 anybody who tried to do it every failed to paint the Cataract. It 

 seems the simplest thing in the world, for it has been done simply 

 — with the simplicity of power, and the wonderful, convincing 

 truth of simplicity. 



You pass from the bustle of the street into the small back room 

 of the Messrs. Williams and Stevens, . . . and behold ! there 

 is the marvel of the Western World before you. The broadening 

 river sweeps curving to the plunge — the beryl green of the 

 central watery masses charms their else awful night into delicious 

 beauty — the vaporous white veils of mingling spray and mist 

 float lightly and tenderly up, smitten through and through with 

 the glory of the diffusive daylight and the splendor of the glitter- 

 ing rainbow — far away, far as the eye can follow the dreaming 

 fancy, the distant landscape glows and mellows through every 

 hue of purple, gold and amethyst — and overhead the sky bends, 

 warm and light, and soft — a heaven worthy of the scene. 



To write of this picture is like writing of the Falls themselves. 

 You think of it, and your pen hangs idly in your hand, as your 

 imagination brings back to you the grandeur and the grace you 

 gazed upon. The painting of such a picture marks an era in the 

 art of our country. . . . 



From the Courier and Enquirer. 

 Fine Arts. . . . It is a view of Niagara Falls which will 

 cause all others ever painted to be forgotten. We know of no 

 American landscape which unites as this does the merits of com- 

 position and treatment; for in painting such a picture the choice 

 of a point of view may justly be called composition. We have 

 yet to see the modern landscape of any school which surpasses in 

 its faithful presentation of the characteristic facts of nature. The 



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