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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
where the distinctions to be acquired were quite as high, and the pecuniary gains much more promising. In its character of museum, the art department was one of the grandest displays of the century, and after the elimination of the works which, from their universally recognized merits, serve as models for the direction and instruction of artists of to-day, enough remains in almost every section to give a hint of the current of art in the country there represented, and to show its capabilities, its tendencies, and its natural character, if it has any.. France, England and Belgium, more than any other countries, borrowed the treasures of the state galleries to grace the art halls at Vienna, and Germany, Austria, Italy and the rest sent comparatively weaker but more truly representative collections.*
In the presence of as magnificent a collection of pictures as was shown in Vienna, it can hardly be denied that artists have gained in at least one direction, and that this progress, if continued in the free and untrammeled course that art at present claims as its own, will result in a higher development of artistic culture, and in the production of works nobler and purer than any creations of the past two centuries. This progress is in the direction of expression; and in the refined subtleties of this quality of artistic power, it is clear to my mind that we of to-day are in advance of any age. Not .that any one example of .superior refinement and truth of expression can be produced which will surpass some of the sublime monuments of the skill and genius of the old masters, but the faculty of comprehending and analyzing expression, and the facility of illustrating it, are much more widely spread among artists of the present day, than ever before. And why is it, then, that the majority of pictures leave the spectator passive and unimpressed? Because the artists themselves, as in every period in the history of art, too often paint with little or no sympathy with their subject. The
* Germany contributed 753 paintings and 194 statues; France, 664 paintings and 196 statues; Austria, 436 paintings and 198 statues; Italy, 340 paintings and 259 statues; Belgium, 217 paintings and 20 statues; Holland, 164 paintings; Hungary» 112 paintings and 27 statues; Switzerland, 108 paintings and 35 statues: Russia, 1^ paintings and 44 statues; Spain, 90 paintings and 30 statues; England, 72 paintings and 22 statues; Norway, 58 paintings and 1 statue; Sweden, 35 paintings and 2 statues ; Greece, 24 paintings and 22 statues; America, 17 paintings and 1 statue.