The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844

The difference between French and English art is as great as the difference between the Louvre and the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square; and about the same relative difference prevails with regard to us. At the last exhibition of the Louvre there were four thousand paintings offered; at the last exhibition of the National Academy there were about four hundred. This is not a very correct method of judging of the artistic excellence of a nation, but it is not far from correct in this case.

H. F.

A Picture by Murillo.—The time has yet to arrive when the march of empire westward will bring in its train our portion of those chef d’œuvres of painting and sculpture which adorn the princely palaces of Europe, and confer distinction upon the possessors of wealth and taste in humbler abodes. To us, who have never visited those miracles of art, the sight of one of them is too gratifying to be passed over without imparting a share of the pleasure to our less fortunate readers. For the first time in our lives, we have enjoyed the delight of seeing at the house of a friend one of the grand pictures of Murillo, which was obtained by a distinguished connoisseur at Lima, in 1828, from the cloister of an old convent, where it had hung for countless years in ignoble seclusion. It had probably been brought from Spain during the life-time of the painter, as it is not described by any of his biographers, who have carefully enumerated the works of his pencil. This idea is strengthened by the fact of his having inscribed his name upon the picture, which is not to be found upon any of his master-pieces at Madrid and Seville. Although it has not escaped the injuries of time and ignorance, it appears to have had the rare good fortune never to have passed through the hands of a restorer or scourer: the whole effect of its magical colouring remains unobscured, except a few touches of the brush of some dauber, who has tried the experiment of adding freshness to the rose.

The subject of it is the Holy Family, of life-size. Saint Joseph is seen in the background, with the infant Saviour in his arms, presenting him to his mother, who is kneeling with extended hands to receive the precious burden of love. Like most of his great scriptural pictures, the composition is simple and natural, exhibiting a familiar scene in domestic life, elevated by expression, and ennobled by beauty. The Saint’s face, which is of the true Andalusian type, is fraught with benignity, as he graciously inclines toward the mother, with the infant resting tenderly in his hands as if supported by a bed of down. Nothing can surpass the graceful figure and attitude of the mother, whose features are literally overflowing with maternal affection, while she caressingly holds out her hands to receive her son. But the charm of the picture is the infant Deity himself, upon whom the painter has lavished his art, and poured forth the inspiration of his genius. His position forms the centre of the group, and instantly arrests the attention and commands the admiration of the spectator. He looks as if just awakened from a deep slumber; his eye-lids are tinged with red, and the motion of his limbs betokens the sudden consciousness of suspended existence; his playful smiling features are radiant with joy at recognizing his mother, toward whom his hands are invitingly opened. His figure is foreshortened, and to such a degree that his legs are out of the canvass, instinct with life and motion. His flesh has the plumpness and transparency of perfect health, flushed with roseate tints; his appearance denotes a child of nine or ten months old, but without that expression of premature intelligence by which the infant Saviour is distinguished in the pictures of Raphael. He is, in short, just one of those angelic creatures fresh from the hands of the Creator, oftener found in the cradles of peasants than of princes. The hands and feet of all the figures are painted with warmth, and with such sun-light transparency, that the ruddy current seems actually coursing beneath the skin. Indeed the whole tone of the picture is so life-like, that for the moment we cease believing it to be an illusion of lights and shadows reflected upon canvass. All the draperies are large and flowing, and broadly touched: that of the infant is a luminous white; the saint’s is sombre; the mother’s is of that violet tint, said to be peculiar to Murillo, styled by the French, lie de vin.

In the grand compositions of Raphael, we often see the actors grouped into a pyramidal form. In this of Murillo, they present a diagonal line; extending from the head of the Saint to that of the mother, and down to a pannier in the corner of the picture, which contains her needle-work attached to a cushion in the Spanish fashion. At her feet a small dog is seated, of the Mexican race, which appears alive. Saint Joseph is painted in shadow, and forms the second plan of the picture. Behind him are suspended some of the implements of his humble trade.

The fame of Murillo out of his native country, has risen within these last ten or fifteen years to the highest rank, and his historical pictures are now classed with those of the greatest masters of the Italian school: as a colorist he is admitted to stand without a rival. This sudden extension of his merits is in some degree owing to the cheap acquisition of eight of his finest works by Marshal Soult, when he was Napoleon’s governor of Andalusia. These pictures have been seen and admired by all the world in Paris. Two of them, the Return of the Prodigal Son, and Abraham Receiving the Angels, have passed from the gallery of the illustrious Marshal to that of the Duke of Sutherland, for a consideration. The fine collection of pictures of the Spanish schools, purchased by Baron Taylor for Louis Philippe, and now exhibited in the Louvre, has contributed to the same effect. It contains Murillo’s Virgin de la Faxa, a perfect master-piece of coloring, which cost one hundred and thirty thousand francs.

None of his great compositions are taken from profane history or mythology. He was in a manner interdicted from using subjects derived from those copious sources, by a decree of the Holy Inquisition of Andalusia, which prohibited painters and sculptors, under the penalties of fine and excommunication, from displaying in their works any lascivious or naked images. His landscapes and flower-girls are painted in the highest style of beauty; and his beggars have never been excelled in all the loathsome attributes of misery and disease. The fact of his never having been out of his native country, disposed critics to believe that his works must be deficient in that highest order of merit which exclusively belongs to the classic schools of Italy: they would not admit that species of excellence which knew how to adapt the highest subjects of art to the unlearned. Yet such was Murillo’s influence over the human heart, that his genius enabled him to embellish truth, and to present it with all its graces and attractions to the understandings of all those who are endowed with an innate love of the beautiful. His pictures, like Gray’s Elegy in a Country Church-yard, may with equal truth be said ‘to abound in images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.’

It is true that there is nothing academic to be found in his groups; no mysterious allegory; no theatrical display of the passions; very little of what is more talked of than understood, the beau-ideal. Nevertheless, he is always original, and never vulgar; his drawing is nearly faultless; his compositions are instantly felt and understood by all who have read the Scriptures, because they convey to the mind more of the evangelical character and attributes of Christianity than those of any other painter. On this subject some very characteristic remarks are made by the late Sir David Wilkie, in his letters from Jerusalem.2

‘His Madonnas, his saints, and even his Saviours, have the Spanish cast; all his figures are probably portraits, and all his forms have a national peculiarity of air, habit, and countenance; and although he often adopts a beautiful expression of nature, there is generally a peasant-like simplicity in his ideas. He gives occasional instances of great sublimity of expression, but it is a sublimity which neither forces nor enlarges nature: truth and simplicity are never out of sight. It is what the painter sees, not what he conceives, which is presented to you. Herein he is distinguished from his preceptor Velasquez. That great master, by his courtly habits of intercourse, contracted a more proud and swelling character, to which the simple and chaste pencil of Murillo never sought to aspire. A plain and pensive cast, sweetly attempered by humility and benevolence, marks his canvass; and on other occasions, where he is necessarily impassioned or inflamed, it is the zeal of devotion, the influx of pious inspiration, and never the guilty passions which he exhibits. In short, from what he sees, he separates from what he feels, and has within himself the counter-types of almost every object he describes.’

If it be true, (says his biographer, Bermudez,) that painters put their own portraits in their works, that is to say, that they exhibit their own genius, their propensities, affections, and the dispositions of their minds in them, the pictures of Murillo bear a great analogy to his virtues, and the gentleness of his character. He was distinguished above all others of his profession by the mildness with which he instructed his pupils; by the urbanity with which he treated his rivals; by the humility with which he excused himself from becoming the painter of the Camara to Charles the Second, which was offered to him by the court; and for the charity with which he distributed the most liberal alms to the poor, who afterward deplored his death. But those who were most affected by it were his beloved scholars, who, overwhelmed with grief and anguish, could find no consolation for the loss of a father who loved them most dearly; of a master who instructed them with the utmost kindness, and of a protector who encouraged them by giving to each such portions of employment as enabled them to maintain themselves. This affectionate tribute to the character of Murillo, must recall to the minds of our readers that beautiful passage in the letter of Baldassare Castíglione to his brother, which is said to express the feelings of all the artists in Rome upon the death of his friend Raphael: ‘Ma non mi pare esser a Roma, perchè non vi è piu il mio poveretto Raffaello.’

Murillo was born at Magdalena, near Seville, on the first day of January, 1618, and died on the third of April, 1682. He was buried in the church of Santa Cruz at Seville. The immediate cause of his death, although he had long been worn out by the anguish of his infirmities, was a fall from a scaffold while he was painting the Marriage of Saint Catharine for the Convent of Capuchins at Cadiz. Notwithstanding the many pictures which he painted, he died possessed of only a few rials, and some property which he had acquired by his wife.

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—We would respectfully ask the reader’s attention to the advertisement of the ‘Knickerbocker Library,’ on the second page of the cover of the present number. ‘Our best exertions shall not be wanting’ to make the series all that the publishers hope for it. That the matériel is good, our readers, we think, need not be informed. The plan has been cordially welcomed by the press, with a single exception; and in that, the quo animo was so apparent as to neutralize the slur intended by the writer. We shall be enabled to secure the earliest literary rarities on both sides of the water for the ‘Knickerbocker Library,’ and the style in which they will be presented will be unsurpassed. ••• We lament in the recent death of Willis Gaylord, the loss of a beloved relative, who was our elder companion in childhood and youth, and our faithful friend and correspondent, to the close of his useful and honored life. Mr. Gaylord died at his beautiful residence of Limerock Farm, Onondaga county, on the 27th ultimo, after a brief illness. ‘Few men,’ says the Albany Argus, ‘were better known throughout the agricultural community than Mr. Gaylord. He was for many years one of the editors of ‘The Genesee Farmer,’ and since the death of Judge Buel, has been the senior editor of ‘The Cultivator.’ As an agricultural writer, it is not too much to say, that his equal is not left to mourn his loss. He was also favorably known by his contributions to our literary and scientific journals. He was distinguished as a warm-hearted philanthropist, and few men have more largely benefitted the community by their labors. His social virtues endeared him warmly to all by whom he was known. In the pathetic language of one by whom the intelligence of his death is communicated, he was truly ‘the friend of the farmer—the friend of humanity.’ We have the proceedings of a meeting of the New-York Agricultural Society, held in the State-House at Albany, on receiving the intelligence of the death of Mr. Gaylord. The President, John P. Beekman, Esq., of Columbia county, passed a high and deserved eulogium upon the character of the deceased. ‘The judgment of every intelligent farmer in the State,’ he observed, ‘will respond to the assertion that to no man whatever, excepting perhaps Judge Buel, is the agriculture of the State more indebted than to Mr. Gaylord. For myself, I can declare in all sincerity that there is no man whose writings caused within me a greater desire to be honored with a personal acquaintance. The character of Willis Gaylord was in all respects what might be expected from his writings; benevolent, enlightened, elevated; yet plain, practical, unassuming. Every day of his useful life was marked, not merely by the exercise of his versatile talents on the multifarious subjects embraced by agriculture and the domestic arts, but by the acquisition and promulgation of knowledge in the wide range of science.’ He was cordially esteemed by all who knew him; he had not an enemy in the world. Hon. Calvin Hubbard, of the Legislature, offered resolutions in testimony of the deep regret which the death of Mr. Gaylord had created in the public mind, copies of which were ordered to be transmitted to the relatives of the deceased; after which, as a token of respect to his memory, the meeting was adjourned. ‘A scholar, a gentleman, a christian, a friend of man, Mr. Gaylord lived universally beloved, and died universally lamented.’ ••• It has been assumed lately by certain of the political and financial enemies of the late Nicholas Biddle, Esq.,—an accomplished gentleman and scholar, whose pen has often entertained and instructed the readers of this Magazine—that he had little power of style, and that his intellectual rôle was a limited one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That point however we are not now to discuss. We merely wish to ask the reader’s attention to the subjoined remarks of Mr. Biddle upon the besetting sin of our American style, oral as well as written: ‘A crude abundance is the disease of our American style. On the commonest topic of business, a speech swells into a declamation—an official statement grows to a dissertation. A discourse about anything must contain every thing. We will take nothing for granted. We must commence at the very commencement. An ejectment for ten acres reproduces the whole discovery of America; a discussion about a tariff or a turnpike, summons from their remotest caves the adverse blasts of windy rhetoric; and on those great Serbonian bogs, known in political geography as constitutional questions, our ambitious fluency often begins with the general deluge, and ends with its own. It is thus that even the good sense and reason of some become wearisome, while the undisciplined fancy of others wanders into all the extravagances and the gaudy phraseology which distinguish our western orientalism.’ A specimen of this ‘orientalism’ we gave in our last number. Here is another example of a somewhat kindred character. A western orator recently delivered himself of it from the summit of a sugar-maple stump at a political barbacue:

‘Whar, I say whar, is the individual who would give up the first foot, the first outside shadow of a foot of the great Oregon! There aint no such individual. Talk about treaty occupations to a country over which the great American eagle has flew! I scorn treaty occupation; d—n treaty occupation! Who wants a parcel of low-flung, ‘outside barbarians,’ to go in cahoot with us, and share alike a piece of land that always was and always will be ours? Nobody. Some people talk as though they were afeard of England. Who’s afeard? Haven’t we licked her twice, and can’t we lick her again? Lick her! Yes! just as easy as a bear can slip down a fresh-peeled sapling! Some skeery folks talk about the navy of England; but who the h-ll cares for the navy? Others say that she is the mistress of the ocean. Supposin’ she is? aint we the masters of it? Can’t we cut a canal from the Mississippi to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, turn all the water into it, and dry up the d–d ocean in three weeks? Whar then would be the navy? It would be no whar! There never would have been any Atlantic ocean if it hadn’t been for the Mississippi, nor never will be, after we’ve turned the waters of that big drink into the Mammoth Cave! When that’s done, you’ll see all their steam-ships and their sail-ships they splurge so much about, lying high and dry, floundering like so many turtles left ashore at low tide. That’s the way we’ll fix ’em. Who’s afeard!’

We have often thought, that if the various similes employed in the Scriptures were thoroughly understood, that their appositeness and beauty would be themes of increased admiration. Observe how the latent meanings of the following passage reveal themselves to the heart:

THE REFINER

BY MONTGOMERY

‘He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.’—Malachi iii. 2, 3.

A few ladies in Dublin, who often met together to read the Word of God, one day occupied their attention with the passage now before the eye of the reader. One of the ladies expressed her opinion that ‘the fuller’s soap and the refiner of silver’ were only the same image to convey the same view of the sanctifying influence of the grace of Christ. ‘No,’ said another, ‘they are not the same image; there is something remarkable in the expression, ‘He shall sit as the refiner and purifier of silver.’’ On going into the town, this lady called on a silver-smith, and desired to know the process of refining silver, which he fully explained to her. ‘But do you sit, Sir,’ she asked, ‘while you are refining?’ ‘Yes, Madam, I must sit with my eye steadily fixed on the furnace; since if the silver remain too long, it is sure to be injured.’ She at once saw the beauty and comfort of the expression. Christ sees it needful to put his people into the furnace, but He is seated by the side of it—His eye is steadily fixed on the work of purifying—and his wisdom and his love are both engaged to do all in the best manner for them. As the lady was returning to her friends, to tell them what she had heard, as she turned from the shop-door, the silver-smith called her back, and said, he had forgotten one thing, and that was, he only knew the process of refining to be complete by seeing his own image in the silver.

When Christ sees his own image in his people, the work of purifying is accomplished.

It may be added, that the metal continues in a state of agitation, until all impurities are thrown off, and then it becomes quite still; a circumstance which heightens the analogy of the case; for how

‘Sweet to be passive in His hand,And know no will but His!’

Does ‘M.’ well to be angry? We ‘referred publicly’ to his query touching our choice of prose or poetry, at his own request, in a playful, but certainly not in an intentionally ‘offensive’ manner. And now, a ‘good that was intended us’ is clean gone forever! Very well—we must submit, with what grace we may.’ ‘My ’spected bredren,’ said a venerable colored clergyman, on a recent occasion, ‘blessed am dat man dat ’spects noth’n, ’cause he an’t gwine to be disapp’inted!’ We solace ourselves with this scrap of Ethiopian philosophy. ••• The experiments alluded to below, in the happiest vein of the amusing ‘Charcoal-Sketcher’ of Philadelphia, have been frequently tried in this city, we understand, but with very infrequent success. Pulling teeth while the patient is asleep is not ‘practised to a very great extent in this community;’ for no sooner is the glittering instrument of torture ‘placed in communication’ with the jaw, than it is found to ‘disturb the Mesmeric function’ to an extraordinary degree:

‘Many who would be valiant in battle, turn pale at sight of the dentist’s chair. To stand up to be shot at in a duel is unpleasant to the nerves, and to storm a breach requires a considerable modicum of determination; but to pull the dentist’s bell and not to run away; to walk boldly in and not to request a postponement, though it gains one no laurels and probably would not help to secure a political nomination on the score of heroism, is pure unadulterated valor; intrinsic—deriving no aid from association or example; nothing from the instinct of discipline or the thirst for glory. In encountering other dangers, there is a large hope, too, of impunity. An expectation of survival, a fond trust to be with the unhurt, always exists. But here, in that morocco throne, so grotesque, so mystical, so strange in all its aspects; your mouth wide open and your head thrown back—what hope can there be? To be hurt is an inevitable thing. We are in the clutches of a fate, and must realize our mortal frailty. To march to this with a whistle; neither to kick the smaller dogs on our route, nor to thrust little children aside spitefully; to take our usual interest in the occurrences of the street as we pass along to execution; to laugh, to jest, to talk of the weather with the identical man as he rattles his glittering instruments and smiles upon their brightness; to shake hands with him and to make a tolerable pretence of being glad to see him, is an effort, though we may have never encountered a war, equal to that which wears medals and puts pensions in its pocket. There is some comfort, however, to the afflicted in the fact that there have been of late symptoms of a combination of animal magnetism with dentistry, which affords a gleam of consolation. The exhibitors in New-York frequently have teeth extracted from mesmerised patients, to prove that in many cases they are insensible to pain—a thing which has been done very often in private in this city, and in many instances with complete success. What a cause for rejoicing would it be then, if the proper degree of ‘impressibility’ were general with those who have failing and recreant teeth, that the dentist and his magnetiser might be one and indivisible? Surgery in all its branches would be benefitted by the same connection; but this strange physical condition is not an invariable concomitant of the mesmeric state; so that valor, such as that to which we have already alluded, cannot go completely out of use, even if all could be subjected to the nervous influence of the magnetiser.’

‘Phazma,’ the cleverest of our western poets, who has written so many beautiful things for the New-Orleans ‘Picayune,’ presents us lately with the subjoined tender sonnet. He has ‘discharged’ it as well as if he had previously read the directions of our eastern ‘manufacturer of the article,’ in our last issue:

MATERNAL TENDERNESS

A mother bends above her weeping child,Her bosom heaving with convulsive throe,Her large eye lighted with expression wild,That, ah! too plainly speaks maternal wo!The tearful infant, lost in bitter grief,Thrills forth its plaintive call for tender care;While from a mother’s trembling hand relief,Alas! can answer no imploring pray’r.Swift-falling tears! and piercing cries of pain!Maternal passion kindling into glow!Peace banished from its sweet domestic reign!Stricken with grief!—ah! sad and cruel blow!Behold the matron in a fury blue,Beating her screaming Bobby with a shoe!

Our esteemed friend, John Sanderson, the distinguished ‘American in Paris,’ whom the readers of this Magazine have known so long, and regarded so highly, is no more! Sad indeed is the task of recording the demise of a scholar so profound, a gentleman so accomplished, and a man so widely admired and beloved. Sanderson was a delightful companion; and as we record this hasty tribute to his memory, we cannot help recalling the many pleasant passages, personal and epistolary, that we have had together. A correspondent of the Philadelphia Gazette, who knew him well, furnishes the following notice of the deceased, in the justice of which all who knew him will cordially concur: