File:American art and American art collections; essays on artistic subjects (1889) (14760052216).jpg

Identifier: americanartamer01mont (find matches)
Title: American art and American art collections; essays on artistic subjects
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Montgomery, Walter
Subjects: Art Artists Art
Publisher: Boston, E.W. Walker & co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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he land of Landseer and Holman Hunt; and Mr. Mark Pattison, the accomplished Rectorof Lincoln College, Oxford, affirms that, during the last twenty years, English taste has re-trograded rather than advanced. These eminent authorities may or may not be trustworthy;certainly there is nothing in the London Athenceum s criticism of Mr. Giffords picture tothrow suspicion upon the truth of their testimony. Neither the Cedars of New England norany other of Mr. Giffords riper works is or was intended to be an attempt at realization.Mr. Gifford does not make such an attempt. He knows that it would be in the first placeuseless, because Art never can compete with Nature, but always fails when trying to do so;and in the second place foolish, because Art has a sphere of her own, in which she isgreater than Nature. Madame Tussauds wax-figures are very earnest and laborious attemptsat realization, but probably no adult human being who can read and write ever supposedthat they are works of art. IMSIl
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Q Pi O P=. I». C5 £ 3 £ Eh n CM ^ y. U H &; AMERICAN ART 255 Mr. Gifford puts himself in his pictures. His landscapes are something more than merescenes in Nature. They are Nature, to be sure, but Nature as he views her, and Naturewith a revelation of his own feelings toward her. The impress of the man is left upon thework, and the work is the measure of the man. He has something fresh to tell us aboutwhat we already know a good deal, and, in addition, he explains to us how this somethinghas gone straight to his heart, and has stirred his emotions. In the last analysis the worthof an artists performance depends upon the worth of the artist himself; his character as wellas his genius is displayed and defined in his works. An ordinary landscape, seen throughhis eyes, becomes full of mystery and of meaning; the meanest flower that blows can,when he has placed it on the canvas, give thoughts that often lie too deep for tears.Mr. Gifford will paint

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