REPORT OF MR. MILLETT.
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left upon every unbiased mind after a serious study of the examples shown. Grand exceptions to this sweeping statement there are indeed, and I shall endeavor to render them full justice in the detailed review which follows. The striking difference between the German art and the art just considered, lies in the very lack of that element which characterizes the latter, impressibility. Then on the one hand we have formality, a cool calculation of the means and the results and an almost servile imitation ; on the other, freedom, spontaneity and originality ;—all this'in general terms. In Germany the idea of an artist seems to be to adopt the principles and arbitrary rules of some recognized light in the profession, and to base all future efforts on the attempts to reconcile these rules with the requirements of his own temperament. Each artist of note has, then, scores of followers, many of whom paint even better than their master, and they are all similarly inspired. If we take the genre painters, which represent by far the most numerous class, we shall find hardly a trace of individuality in their ranks. They paint the same subjects, compose after the same rules, execute in the same manner one with another, and it was a rather monotonous succession of genres that constituted a large proportion of the pictures in the German department. As a rule, these pictures are painted almost above reproach, so far as the mechanical execution goes. The flesh has often very charming tones, the figures are unexceptionally draped and drawn, mid the arrangement is pleasing. They impress one, however, from this very perfection of execution, and by their unmistakable traces of cold reasoning, leave the spectator unmoved and unsympathetic. Not accompanied by any superior force of imagination, the artistic taste exhausts itself in perfecting the productions to a degree which compels the spectator to follow the same passionless course and arrive at the same logical sequences. A scene is illustrated so calculatingly correct and ploddingly detailed, that u° imagination of the spectators can mould and adapt the ] deas set forth to his individual current of thought. It is the Sll preinest pleasure to enjoy this play of the imagination which creates and transforms, and harmonizes all things with ihe experiences of our own lives, and perfects and glorifies