Niagara Falls 



picture has no foreground, to speak literally. It is water to the 

 base line, and water everywhere. The only land that appears is 

 in two strips of shore in the far distance; which, by the way, are 

 most delicately and truthfully painted. The view is from a point 

 on the Canada side, a little above the Fall, the whole curve of 

 which, except of course the small segment next to the spectator, is 

 taken in at once by the eye. The point of view being elevated, 

 the Fall opposite to the spectator is seen at its full height, and 

 just above it the river stretches away into miles of broken surface. 

 A few light diffusive clouds in the sky ; and just above the horizon 

 peep one or two peaks of heavy cumuli. The rainbow glows 

 with luminous color, as if it were cast by a prism. Its grand char- 

 acter is given to the picture by the skilful presentation of the great 

 mass of water ; and the marvel of its treatment is the expression of 

 mobility which every part of it conveys. There is not a line's 

 breadth upon it that does not seem in motion ; not an outline in it 

 that does not appear to be just passing into some other form. One 

 of its marvellous passages is the view up the river, where the dis- 

 tance of miles is clearly expressed in a space of half a hand's 

 breadth." 



From the Nerv York Daily News. 



Church's Painting of Niagara Falls — ... Mr. Church 

 has shown himself the great artist in the judicious selection of his 

 point of view, and the scope embraced in his picture. The 

 Horse-Shoe Fall, viewed from the Canada shore a few rods above 

 Table Rock, is taken in at one sweep of the vision from the shore 

 to the island; while the tower, the rocks below, and the rapids 

 receding into the distance contribute to make this view the most 

 eminently characteristic. 



Building up his composition upon the true principles of the 

 sublime, he has not marred the simple grandeur of his subject by 

 the introduction of any extraneous forms or objects of animal life. 

 He has even excluded the shore from his ** foreground," and 

 makes the moving mass of waters — as they go rushing madly at 



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