REPORT OF MR. MILLETT.
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dines with a tender feeling of sympathy, to all that is pathetic and touching in the history of peasant life, and, par excellence , the peasant painter among the Hollanders, everything that he illustrates, be it the simplest episode, he poetizes with a solemn earnestness of feeling, and almost unconsciously adds an element of pathos, though where and how it is one cannot tell. He, in common with many of his compatriots, loves a warm, brilliant light and a large proportion of shadow, which in its depth and mystery remind one of Rembrandt, and, accompanying this admiration for strong opposition of tone which with so many artists is satisfied by a brusque and harsh contrast, is a rare feeling for the harmony ot effect. With Israels, his key of color is always admirably attuned with the chord he touches in the human feelings, and bis work is the grandest illustration I can refer to of this
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power of melodious conception of a subject, and the highest proof of the progress which I alluded to in the first part of Ibis article, as noticeable in this direction among artists of the present day. Israels’ interiors are marvels of depth and dchness of tone and positive truth of opposition, and in the management of shadows he has no equal. Pie exposed two Pictures of the same motive, a mother feeding her child, noticeable for the strength of color and play of light poetically rendered; but his chef-d'oeuvre was From Darkness to Light . It is a Hutch interior, sombre and mysterious. In the foreground is a mother with two children, motionless under the crushing weight of the grief they feel as the coffin, with the remains of the husband and father, is borne from the apartment by the assembled villagers. A soft light steals through tbe open door, defining the forms of the rough peasants who, ^ ith all the tenderness of women in their sympathy with the grief of the* family, reverently bear their burden. You feel the oppressive quiet of the scene, broken only by the mournful tones of the bell that tremble in the air, and, with Ibe peaceful light, half subdued, steals into the darkened room. No dramatic exaggeration, no violent contrasts, all s °iemn and peaceful and quiet;—a true elegy and nobly expressed. After Israels everything seems cold and passion- ^ ess ? but there was a similar inspiration of color visible in the ^orks of several other artists who exposed less eloquent