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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
pictures. Sadee hung some charming hits of quiet color, one illustrating a scene common enough at a cathedral door, the poor receiving the bread bequeathed by some pious burgher, to secure the prayers of the recipients of this rather selfish charity. The figures are remarkable for solid truth of tone and charming execution. There were few pictures inspired by a very picturesque element of Dutch peasantry, the fishermen. Elchanon Yerveer was the only one who was moved to try this path, and even he does not enter enough into the spirit of the fisherman’s life to produce more than a skilful study of a quaint model well posed. Beside Israels’ portrait of his mother, there was but one other which made itself seen. This was Bisschop’s portrait of John Lothrop Motley. The light is harsh, the tone false, aud though artistically treated, especially in the accessories, it is not a portrait from which one could ever make the acquaintance of the historian. This artist also exposed a life-sized figure of a young girl, a little crude in color, and several interiors with many good qualities of tone, but an occasional meagreness of light. Among the landscapes w T ere found few motives from the characteristic beauties of the Dutch landscape. Almost no windmills, a canal or two by S. L. Yerveer, with but a hint of the richness of the local color, a few brilliant studies by Roelofs, and several marines, were all the noticeable efforts in this direction, with the exception of several strong architectural pictures by Springer. Among the marines, two pictures by Heemskerck van Beest, and two by Mesdag, were painted with more than ordinary skill, but were not especially attractive. Madame Bonner, with her strongly touched and well understood groups of domestic animals, was the most original animal painter represented.
Entering upon the review of German art, it is clear to me that I leave behind the field of impulsiveness and spontaneity» and am penetrating the arena of plodding and logical, well reasoned and conscientiously studied efforts, but with accompanying results necessarily dry and only superficially impressive. This may seem strong language to apply to such a powerful and influential school of art, as the one I am about to (Jiscuss, but this is the idea induced by the general aspect of the German department of the Exposition, and the impress