Materials for Landscape Art in America

FOR the existence of a school of beautiful landscape art in a country it. is necessary that the landscape itself should be beautiful. However good may be the natural endowments of the artist, and however excellent his technical accomplishments, he cannot produce works that shall have permanent interest unless the landscape from which he draws his inspiration present elements that will finely touch the imagination, exalt the feelings, and strongly appeal to the cultivated sense of beauty. It is not the true office of the landscape painter to render upon canvas the commonplace, or to reproduce the deformities, whether of nature or art, that may chance to make up or to form a part of any given scene. The undiscriminating delineation of the features of earth and sky, of human habitation or other work of the hand of man, is not his business. His function is to lay hold of beauty where it exists in the visible world, and so to set it forth that it shall impress the beholder and quicken his admiration for the beautiful.

The landscape art of this country at the present time too often suggests a poverty of material, and shows that the artist has misapprehended his function. A vigorous and effective realistic treatment is often employed in setting forth subjects that possess no characteristics which should at all commend them to the artist’s regard. Of the many landscapes annually displayed in our exhibitions, very few whose materials are drawn from native sources fail conspicuously to exhibit elements that are displeasing to a sensitive eye. The fine choice and graceful treatment of a subject, which, with a true artist, constitute the fundamental part of his art. are rarely met with. It could, indeed, hardly be otherwise under the conditions that now environ the painter in America; for our civilization has reached a stage in which the beautiful is little understood or cared for. The familiar and habitual sight of what is ugly inevitably induces an insensitiveness to ugliness; and with a people so little used as we are to the sight of what is beautiful and graceful in our surroundings, the finer artistic instincts have little opportunity to develop. Hence it is that the unselecting portrayal of common things, with the piquant force of modern methods, too often passes for all that landscape art should be. To an apprehension of the fact that it ought to be much more than this a large proportion of the public will probably awaken slowly. Great changes in ideas must take place before we shall generally appreciate the better functions of art, and recognize the spiritual and material conditions which favor its development. We are not yet, as a people, conscious of what we lack. The widespread and rapidly spreading interest and activity in what passes for art are regarded as indications that the fine arts are flourishing among us; and in the department of landscape painting it is thought that we possess upon our own continent all the necessary materials for the development of native talents, while the vast, extent and varied character of our natural scenery afford, it is often remarked, peculiar and almost unparalleled advantages.

But this view of the matter indicates an imperfect apprehension both of the true function of the landscape painter and of the kind of influences which are necessary to produce him. The artist’s business is not, as I have said, to portray the commonplace or the merely natural. No skill in depicting even the grandest scenes will suffice for art, It is the artist’s business to lay hold of and to present a kind of beauty which does not exist in mere natural scenery, — a beauty which is the result of human influence. The human element is essential. Of the impressions received from the many phases of beauty in landscape, those are the most satisfying and the most enduringly pleasant which, in one way or another, exhibit the marks of a human presence, and bespeak a human energy acting in sympathy with nature. Nature pure and simple, the wild, untamed wilderness, does not so much attract or so long hold our admiration. The sense of loneliness and of savageness which wild scenes, however sublime and impressive, induce renders them oppressive and repellent if long dwelt upon, while scenes of rural and pleasant industrial life are permanently enjoyable. What scenes possessing a graceful humanized aspect, such as might stimulate a truly artistic feeling and endeavor, have we in America? Taking the general aspect of the country at present, it can hardly be said that such scenes are numerous. Here and there, in out-ofthe-way places, bits of landscape may be found which offer features that may well tempt the artist’s pencil. In such places the smartness and crudeness of our suburban settlements do not offend the eye, while the savageness of the primitive wilderness, and the hard conditions that pertain to the life and surroundings of the pioneer, have given place to an easy rural existence, in which the combined charms of nature and of human abode reach some of their most fascinating aspects. In the old Dutch settlements of New York, a substantial though rude style of building prevailed in which there were attractive elements of the picturesque. Houses wrought of the native stone, with roofs of tile, having hospitable porches shaded by creeping vines or climbing roses to shelter their doorways, with bright bits of garden hard by, and groups of embowering trees, — all bespeaking an ameliorated and contented life, — existed in numbers along the banks of the Hudson a quarter of a century ago, and some of them still remain. The human conditions suggested by such objects, if not of the highest interest, are entirely agreeable, and by them the expression of the landscape is softened and beautified. At the village of Leeds, near the Hudson, a stone bridge yet spans a stream of considerable width, which in design and construction is as good as a rustic bridge can be. It consists of five arches, which differ in the widths of their spans in agreement with the conformation of the river hod. The main channel of the stream is about sixty feet wide, and flows by the town of Leeds on the hither side. From the nearer bank, which is somewhat high, a small arch is thrown out to a massive pier planted at the edge of the deep water. From this pier a great arch springs, clearing at once the whole channel, and three lesser arches carry the roadway over the shoal bottom to the opposite shore. The varying widths of the arches necessitate a variation in their heights; and the line of the roadway over them, rising over the great arch, and gradually subsiding as it traverses the lesser ones, describes a curve of much though quite unstudied beauty. In the spring freshets this bridge is subjected to enormous force of rushing floods and pushing ice-fields. To meet this strain ponderous wedge-shaped breakwater projections are built out on the up-stream sides of the piers, while strong buttresses of rectangular section are set against them on the down-stream sides. Its materials, gathered on the spot and taking on a natural enrichment of moss, lichen, creeping vine, and weather-stain, together with the simple logic of its form, which answers perfectly all the conditions that require to be met, give it an expression of sympathy with the natural features with which it is associated. Such an object adds a subtle charm to the landscape of which it forms a part, enhancing the value of everything in its neighborhood. Without it, the scene, though peculiarly graceful, with background of gentle hill range, opposed by stretch of rolling meadow lands, interspersed with fine groups of trees, and traversed by the sheeny, winding stream, would lack more than half its attractiveness. In the absence of this or some kindred object, the human element would be too remotely suggested to impress the mind in a lively and affecting manner.

An object of human handiwork equal in interest to the bridge at Leeds is, in this country, hardly elsewhere to be found. Stone bridges are, indeed, occasionally met with, but it would be difficult to find another which should so completely fulfill the conditions that make a structure of this kind delightful to the eye of an artist and to all persons susceptible to artistic impressions. No object has more effect on the landscape, either for good or for ill, than a bridge. No country can be devoid of material for pictures that has good bridges. A well-constructed stone bridge is always better than any other kind of bridge; yet wooden bridges often possess a character that is both interesting and picturesque. The great timber bridges that yet remain, of an earlier time, in the Middle and New England States are sometimes good objects of their kind; but the common and more recent type of covered wooden bridge is an ugly thing wherever it occurs. Such a bridge, instead of lending an added grace, is enough to spoil the finest scene. Its rigid lines have no affinity with the living contours of natural things, and its slight construction is painfully suggestive of premature decay. The best wooden bridges, from a picturesque point of view, are perhaps the log bridges of our mountainous regions. Some of these, sagging gracefully when of a single span, or rising in a gentle curve when two lengths of logs (supported in mid-stream by a rough timber framework) are necessary, and provided with a rustic railing, are suitable enough to the half-wild scenes in which they occur. But all such wooden contrivances have a temporary and makeshift look, and hence they can never have that effect, as of integral parts of the landscape, which belongs to substantial structures of stone.

An object of great artistic value sometimes connected with the older farmsteads of New York and Pennsylvania is a simple contrivance for sheltering hay. It consists of a square-hipped roof of boards or thatch, supported by tall posts which pass through its four corners, and are provided with movable pegs on which the roof rests at any convenient height which the quantity of hay to be covered may require. One or more of these objects add greatly to the picturesqueness of the group of farm buildings and appurtenances. The hay-stack is also sometimes seen grouped with the barns and sheds, and it is always a beautiful object.

The New England farmstead is rarely so agreeable to the eye as that of the old Dutch settlements of New York. Its less substantial materials and the usual absence of those marks of restful enjoyment which in many cases characterize the Dutch farm dwelling make it generally less interesting in appearance. Weathered clapboards and shingles exhibit little of that richness that beautifies old walls of stone; and the marks of decay which soon appear in wooden structures built so thinly as those of this country usually are give an unpleasant sense of transientness, and often suggest a degree of discomfort which is no necessary part of the picturesque. Where the building has been kept in good repair by paint the quality of the picturesque is still more wanting; for nothing can be more out of harmony with the character of any natural surface than an expanse of painted wood such as the smart New England farmhouse exhibits. The general expression of the New England farmstead is too often one of cheerless unthrift. The slatternly confusion of unhoused and illused implements, of uncovered woodpile and scattered odds and ends of rubbish, make up a scene which bespeaks a shiftless and uninteresting existence, and affords little material for the imagination or the pencil of the artist. Nor is the more general view of the New England farmstead much more enticing than the nearer view. The group of dwelling, barns, and sheds, often without shade trees, presents few agreeable lines or proportions, while its hard angularities and uniform blank surfaces offer nothing that the eye can rest upon with comfort. But there are happy exceptions to this dreary type. Old farmsteads are sometimes met with that have a much more attractive character and expression. Where the house is substantial and unpainted, or when it shows only the worn traces of that dark-red color which was long ago the fashion, while yet the general condition remains unimpaired; when some mantling vine is trained about the doorway, and allowed to wander over window-heads, along the eaves, or up the corners, throwing the grace of its free growth over its monotonous baldness of design ; and when great elms fling their branches protectingly over it, and partly conceal its sharp angularity and that of the hoarded barns and offices, a scene is presented that may well arrest the eye of the lover of the picturesque. The generous, homely New England farmhouse of long ago, with its thrifty and independent tenants, had a character all its own and one of high worth, even from the artist’s point of view. In its full integrity it can hardly now be found, though something of its character may still occasionally be seen in the more retired rural districts.

Other buildings of interest, forming marked features in the landscape, are becoming year by year less frequent than they formerly were. The saw-mill by the side of a running stream, with its dam and sluiceway and its litter of logs and sawn planks, may yet sometimes be seen; but the grist-mill with its great water-wheel, and the wind-mill with its spreading sails, are hardly any longer to be found.

Of village architecture we have never had any in the country worthy of the name. There is not a village in the land whose streets, so far as their buildings are concerned, would ever tempt a painter of discernment to linger and make drawings. Village church-building is with us especially unpleasing. A singular baldness, absence of proportion, and general box-like character mark the structures in which New Englanders gather for religious worship. The parsimony and indifference to the needs of the future, which have largely forbidden a thorough and substantial mode of domestic building, are, as a rule, equally apparent in the village church and the village school-house. The better class of older dwellings — the manorial houses of the Hudson and the colonial mansions of New England — are the best examples of house-building that the country affords. They are, however, generally neither substantial enough in material nor fine enough architecturally to make them conspicuously interesting as pictorial objects.

After bridges and other buildings, few things of man’s workmanship add more to the beauty of rural landscape than roadways and fences. These are often both picturesque and graceful in a high degree, though they rarely, with us, exhibit that thoroughness of construction which gives to such things their best character. A rural roadway which follows the ups and downs and ins and outs of the natural conformation of the land cannot be otherwise than beautiful in its lines and surfaces; and when its sides are clothed with a spontaneous growth of vegetation, few things to be seen in this country are more lovely. Its long stretches of approximately direct course present charming perspectives, and its sweeping curves are of the most subtle character. The loose stone walls with which the greater portion of our farm lands are inclosed harmonize well with our scenery. Their slight construction is in keeping with the prevailing character of rustic workmanship, and the rapidity with which they yield to the influences of frost—falling away from the mason’s rigid line in all manner of accidental curves — soon allies them with the free forms of nature, and renders them agreeable to the eye of the artist. Such objects cannot, however, excite the interest that we should feel in better pieces of workmanship after they had, with the lapse of time, become modified in form by settlement and deflection. We are more impressed with the influences of nature upon a thing that has been wrought with care and thoroughness than we can be by the untimely distortion, however picturesque, of a thing that never had any substantial character. Thus the wavy line of the coping of a wall that has withstood the vicissitudes of a century has a significance, as well as a beauty, which does not inhere in one that has been thrown out of shape by the frosts of half a dozen winters. The various kinds of wooden field fencing that are common throughout the country, the stump fences of remote regions and the post and rail fences of the older farming districts among them, are often picturesque enough in their way, but they are generally less pleasing than stone walls.

The grass-grown by-roads and those which lead from the farmstead to the remote portions of the farm, fenced in one or the other of these ways, are often rich in materials for the artist; and well-chosen passages of them feelingly wrought into pictures may, especially when animated by figures or animals, constitute a refreshing and delightful form of landscape art of subordinate character.

The inland landscape of America exhibits few other objects of human work that can much interest the painter, with exception of the farm implements that are more or less conspicuous in rural landscape. Carts, wagons, ploughs, and other farm tools are interesting and telling things in the foreground when they are homely enough in character to mate well with rural scenes. Nothing, for instance, could be more attractive of its kind than the ox-cart that was in use in the remote parts of New England before the advent of the railway. Its ponderous wheels with enormous hubs and felloes, wrought entirely without iron; its great tongue of hard wood, split and divided into a Y-shape at the end that was attached to the axle ; and its hay-rack, which in its season replaced the ordinary body, made up an object of a highly fascinating and picturesque character.

Besides rural buildings, roadways, and implements, the cultivated lands of the farmer have a large share in humanizing the aspect of the landscape. Without the broad reaches and various cheekerings of cultivated fields, meadows, and fallows, lying out upon the alluvial levels, stretching over the fertile uplands, and making openings on the flanks of hill ranges, the mere habitations and other appurtenances of man would make little impression upon the face of nature. Nothing so much contributes to the production of what may be called a smiling landscape as a generous system of agriculture ; and the districts where such agriculture exists will usually he those which will offer the most material for beautiful landscape art. The regularity of arrangement of well - ordered farm crops affords lines that pleasantly oppose the free lines of nature, without too much formality. Many other things may, of course, offer opposing lines ; the geometric forms of buildings have this value, among others. But the trim rows of herbage in field or garden, yielding, as they do, to the modeling of the earth’s surface, and modified by perspective, furnish a kind of picturesque order whose value is too often overlooked by the landscape painter.

The forms of trees that have grown up in cultivated lands, along roadways, and about the habitations of man derive a character from the circumstances of their growth that differs widely from that of trees grown in a wild forest. What may be called the ideal, or typical, forms of the oak, the elm, the maple, the ash, and the beech, for instance, may be regarded as in a measure the product of human industry, since without the clearing of the forest and the cultivation of the soil they would not be what they are. Such tree-forms contribute largely, therefore, to the humanized aspect of the landscape. The trees of America have a beanty which is peculiar to them. When grown under favorable conditions, they are remarkable for elastic grace of structure and for brilliancy of verdure. The most conspicuous of them, and the tree which is, perhaps, the most generally attractive to the artist, is the elm ; and when not too weak in its ramification, as it is sometimes apt to be, it is certainly one of the grandest and most beautiful of natural objects. In New England it often attains enormous size, and it is, happily, almost everywhere to be found, exhibiting a great variety of magnificent shapes. The elm is the favorite and characteristic roof - tree of the older New England homesteads, and hence, more than any other, it is suggestive of human associations. The oak is now more rarely met with in fine condition and developed growth. Few of these noblest of trees, which formerly existed in considerable numbers, have been spared by the axe of the ship-builder. But a fine oak may yet occasionally be seen, and, with its well-massed head of dark foliage, its vigorous branching, its mighty trunk, and its giant grip of the earth, it stands altogether unrivaled among the sylvan materials of landscape art. The maples, though generally less fine than the typical forms of elm and oak, are yet often very admirable trees. Indeed, a well-favored rock maple possesses some of the best characteristics of both the elm and the oak. Somewhat like the elm, its mode of growth is graceful and elastic, while, in common with the oak, its foliage hangs in heavy, compact, and beautifully modeled masses. Such is usually its symmetry and density that its branches are apt to be almost entirely hidden in a rounded head of leafage ; but when somewhat of its internal anatomy is exposed to view, it becomes to the landscape draughtsman one of the best of trees. The fullrounded and robust ash may also rank among trees of the first order, from the artist’s point of view. Its smooth and stately bole, and its finely radiating yet sufficiently strong mode of ramification, commend it highly to the admirer of sylvan beauty. No tree is more intimately associated with human life than the apple-tree, and few trees are more picturesque or of more varied charm at different seasons. In its time of bloom it is unrivaled in fairness by anything that grows ; and in its full fruitage it again presents a beauty that is hardly surpassed. Under all conditions, whether of culture or neglect, it is agreeable to the eye, and suggestive of service both to the æsthetic and to the material wants of man. The half - wildness of an old rocky apple orchard possesses a pathetic fascination for the artist, and tempts his pencil by many admirable groupings.

Very fascinating scenes are presented by those vast reaches of salt marsh lands that occur along our coast at the mouths of rivers. These are often rich in delightful pictures ; especially at the time when they are dotted with hay-ricks and animated groups of laborers. One of the most charming objects to be seen in these regions is the hay-boat wending inland through tortuous channels, propelled by oars or by a picturesque square of weather - beaten sail. Such scenes present few discordant elements, and may almost be taken just as they are and wrought into beautiful designs.

The materials of landscape art need not, of course, consist always of objects which are the most perfect of their kind. Things in themselves imperfect must usually enter more or less abundantly into all art, as they do into all natural scenes ; but to be highly interesting a landscape subject must possess governing features that are excellent and beautiful. If the total impression received from a landscape view is not one of beauty, it is unfit to be a subject of art. The mind and the eye cannot dwell with healthy pleasure upon deformity and ugliness. The naked, poverty-stricken dwellings and the pinched aspect of things that meet the eye in many dreary tracts of the country can afford little material for painting. The higher hills and mountain ranges have not yet, in this country, been ennobled by the addition of architectural works of a permanent character, such as might enhance their natural beauties of outline, and give them a visible connection with the life of man. Hence, whatever their grandeur, they do not possess their utmost charm, nor furnish such materials as they might for pictures. In their natural wildness they may make good backgrounds to the various scenes of human life that find place in the valleys and lowlands, but as main subjects they are not enough humanized to serve the purposes of the painter of right feeling. In addition to the inanimate things which make up a beautiful landscape, the figures of men and animals are, of course, necessary to complete its charm. The visible presence of appropriate figures not only gives life to a scene, but it gives also both the forms and the colors that are needed to oppose and enliven the forms and colors of common nature. The human figure ought to be to the landscape painter the object for the sake of which everything else exists. Nothing so enhances all other charms of nature; and landscape art which fails to exhibit man as its crowning interest falls short of its fullest function. No high degree of beauty in human form is now commonly to be met with ; but the natural movements of even ordinary men, women, and children have often a grace that artists, at the present time, are rarely enough alive to. In landscape figures the picturesque is too often sought without reference to the graceful; but to the discerning eye the graceful is an essential element of the picturesque. Most landscape painters are singularly indifferent to this quality. If the artist only succeeds in getting his figures natural in movement, he is usually satisfied, and in general the artistic public is equally so. But the artist’s true function is no more fulfilled by being simply natural in delineation of the figure than it is by being simply natural in the rendering of the various features of the landscape itself.

Three things have operated strongly against the general appreciation of beauty in American art, especially as regards the figure. The first is the lack of familiar acquaintance with works of art in which beauty is set forth. Our country possesses very little of such art ; and example is necessary to quicken and to guide the painter during his forming period. The second is the strength of the realistic idea which animates the artistic activities of our time largely to the exclusion of the more fundamental principles of design. And the third is the influence of photography, especially instantaneous photography. This last process, by arresting positions of the body that do not naturally impress the eye, has lately familiarized us with the most ungraceful attitudes, and has given a fresh impetus to the unselecting habit, which is a bane of our present schools of painting.

The greatest obstacle to progress in the art of figure painting as connected with landscape is, perhaps, the absence of appropriate costume. Farm laborers, both men and women, are, in New England, usually clad in the most negligent and unpicturesque manner. Nevertheless, figures of more or less interest are not altogether wanting; and the ordinary operations of husbandry give occasion to a great variety of actions and groupings which often present excellent materials for pictures, even though the costumes be not in themselves of interest.

To the discriminating eye even the most ungainly figure in action will frequently assume attitudes of more or less gracefulness. For these the artist should he ever watchful, though to arrest them his pencil will require much practice. He should feel that without grace no figure is, in general, worth drawing. To an eye exercised in discerning beauty the figure of a man swinging a scythe or pitching hay, for instance, will almost constantly exhibit movements as beautiful as any of those that have been embodied in the finest Greek sculpture. By catching these movements the artist may give to his design a character which will greatly raise its value. It is true that the grace which rustic figures show may sometimes be not so plainly marked, and in many instances a figure may be good for a picture, to which, standing by itself, we might hardly apply the term grace. But anything verging upon real ugliness of pose will distinctly lower the value of the design in which it occurs as a conspicuous element. The grace whose importance I am here insisting upon is that simple, quiet grace that is entirely natural and unconscious. No undue emphasis of this quality is desirable, of course; but that beauty which is inherent. in everything that is at all worth the artist’s labor ought, above all things, to be brought out in the treatment of the human figure.

The figures of animals form a class of picturesque objects which are always available, and though the trappings of beasts of burden are not, in this country, any more than rustic costumes, of a highly picturesque aspect, the animals themselves are always worthy subjects of the artist’s skill. The ox-team before the plough or the hay-cart, the draft-horse in his harness, and the varied groupings of cattle and sheep present an ever ready resource by which the landscape painter is often enabled to convert an otherwise indifferent scene into one of interest.

We have thus far considered only those materials for landscape which are offered by rural scenes ; but the departments of what may be called industrial, urbane, and elegant life ought hardly less to supply subjects for the painter. In these departments, however, our country is deplorably deficient in picturesque interest, except in our inland water-ways and sea-coast scenes, both of which often exhibit a good deal that is admirably suited to the purposes of the painter. The slow-sailing craft and towed groups of barges that transport bulky merchandise up and down the Hudson, and the fishing and carrying sloops and schooners that ply from port to port along the sea-board, are nearly always fascinating objects; and so, also, are the many varieties of smaller sailing and rowing boats that are used for common service, — the yawl of the transport craft, for instance, and the dory of the fisherman.

The operations of fishing and lading afford thousands of admirable subjects for the painter, notwithstanding that in the construction of wharfs and buildings the elements of the picturesque are not abundant. Wharfs and the buildings connected with them are hardly ever built of material substantial enough to take on, with the lapse of time, that mellowing touch of nature that is so essential to beauty. As in the New England farmhouse, the thin boarding and shingling of sea-port dwellings and storehouses generally exhibit either the marks of premature decay, or else those monotonous expanses of crude paint which are a torture to the eye ; while the piles and planks of wharfs and piers fail, equally, to have that expression of solidity which should be a prime quality in such works, and which would contrast agreeably with the buoyant and elastic grace of boats and rigging. In the stead of wholesome picturesqueness a slatternly and squalid aspect is apt to result, and the value to the artist of the good elements in boats, fishing-gear, and kindred objects is thereby greatly lessened.

Other industries than those of fishing and water transport rarely, at the present time, supply interesting materials for pictures that can be classed under the head of landscapes. The post-coach, with its picturesque accompaniments, has passed away with the conditions to which it. was suited, and the convenient and now indispensable steam railway is certainly not a thing of pictorial interest. Its cuttings and embankments, its iron bridges and machine-shops, are cruel scars upon the face of nature which no feeling eye can regard without pain. Without indulging in any sentimental or unreasonable denunciation of the great mechanical activities of our time and country, of which the railway is the most conspicuous, but rather admitting their advantages within reasonable limits, it may yet be said that they are destructive of landscape beauty. At least they are so when constructed as they now are in America, with reckless disregard of everything but the commonest utilitarian and financial ends.

It is conceivable that a railway should be carried through a given territory without seriously injuring its beauty. If, instead of pursuing the directest course at any sacrifice of natural features, care might be exercised to follow the lines that would harm them least; if the cuts and other inevitable disfigurements were healed, as far as might be, by turfing and planting; and if, in the place of unsightly and dangerous skeleton bridges of iron, well-designed and strongly-built bridges of solid and safe masonry were employed, the railway might not be the offense to the eye that it now is. With the increase of appreciation of the worth of beauty, which is not to be despaired of, it is possible that the railway may, in time, be thus improved. Certainly, if it is not. it will, at its present rate of growth, so disfigure the face of the whole country as to make it uninhabitable for men of refined sensibilities. The preservation of natural beauty is one of the first conditions of the development of taste. Protection against its destruction is therefore a matter of national importance equal to any other, and without which no schemes of art education can be of much avail. In its present form, the railway, and all that it stands for, is a potent agency for the defeat of any efforts that may be made to diffuse those artistic tastes which help to raise a people out of the barbarism of vulgar interests.

The streets of our cities are almost wholly devoid of picturesque beauty. The dull and oppressive monotony of the brick and stone walls of the plainer dwellings and warehouses, and the pretentiously ornate character and incongruous juxtapositions of others, render our street scenes, for the most part, repellent to the feeling eye. Of the newer styles of building little need here be said, because, were they even beyond criticism as examples of architecture, they could, on account of their newness, furnish no material to five painter. A degree of age is necessary to render any object of human work that holds a place in the landscape artistically interesting; for in such objects the artist’s interest does not attach to the things themselves only, but also to the conditions to which the influences of nature may have brought them. To be nobly picturesque, a structure must, of course, be intrinsically noble,— like the Leeds bridge, — and the artist of feeling will appreciate this character ; but in its brand-new state hardly any object can be a good subject for painting. Even Leeds bridge, in the days of its newness, must have largely lacked the charm that now commends it to our admiration.

The same disregard for what is agreeable to the eye that makes the railway so ugly has operated to deprive our older cities of nearly all that was once architecturally interesting, or had become historically significant. No inherent excellence of character or memorableness of association seems now to avail against the demolition of a structure that may happen to stand in the way of any commonplace utility. The old Hancock house in Boston was, for instance, a conspicuously good example of substantial building, in which picturesqueness had been secured in a natural and unaffected way. Though it was not a great work of art, it was yet a thoroughly good one of its kind ; and it was an object upon which the eye might always rest with pleasure. One street view in Boston had, a few years ago, considerable beauty that was chiefly owing to the Paddock elms, which grouped so well with the tower and spire of Park Street Church, and cast their pleasant shade over the now glaring sidewalk of Tremont Street. The commonplace ugliness of another street view is still largely made up for by the ivied tower of the Old South meeting-house, whose preservation has recently, by a narrow chance, been secured by private munificence. These and many other instances that will occur to everybody show something of the nature of the obstacles to the growth of taste and the cultivation of the fine arts which beset our civilization. Without an appreciation for things that are excellent and memorable sufficient to protect them from wanton destruction, and without the presence of such things, no great school of art ever did or ever can flourish.

A few things of excellent character, though of modest pretensions, which have attained age enough to give them something of a picturesque charm as well as historic interest, still exist among us. Some of the older college buildings in Cambridge have a quiet dignity of aspect, arising from both excellence of design and the mellowing touch of time. Old Harvard and Massachusetts halls, Holden Chapel, and Hollis and Stoughton are well proportioned, reasonable, and substantial buildings, which, while not to be classed as beautiful examples of architecture, are entirely agreeable objects to look upon, and will remain so as long as they last. Few buildings are met with in any of our older towns and cities which are nearly so good as these ; and their quiet expression ought to furnish a useful lesson to our rising architects. Very different and very much better would have been the present aspect of this seat of learning, had the whole town assumed and retained a character such as buildings so substantial and dignified as these would have imparted to it. V ith such a style of building, and with the suburbs and river banks kept free from unnecessary disfigurements, Cambridge would be a far pleasanter place than it now is to live in. Materials for art would not be wanting in a town of such character ; and the conditions most favorable to art are the same that are most favorable to all the best interests and enjoyments of men. Our general indifference to these conditions is amazing, as the scattered rubbish, staring advertisements, and monstrous ugliness in building which disfigure the suburbs of all our larger towns too undeniably attest. These are no necessary part of the industrial progress by which it is sometimes sought to excuse them. They are signs of an indifference and an insensitiveness that do us little credit as an enlightened people.

In our public parks and in the pleasure grounds of the wealthy, the artist will find good subjects less frequently than might be the case were the art of the landscape gardener better understood among us. The value of straight lines on level ground, and the almost inevitable weakness of sinuous paths and roadways that are not governed in their course by natural undulations of surface or by obstacles either natural or artificial, seem to be not generally enough recognized. All imitation of the freedom of nature, the formation of artificial mounds, rockeries, cataracts, and kindred fancies, are apt to be bad in effect. We may terrace a hillside, and conduct a stream through walled channels, let it fall from ledge to ledge of good masonry, and shoot in fountain spray into marble basins, with good effect. An artist may revel in artificial works of this kind when once they have been enough touched by nature to take off their brand-newness ; but imitations of the features of wild and free nature are tolerable only on the stage. A park or garden is properly an artificial thing, and it is generally most effective and delightful when all its arrangements are frankly and reasonably so. As a rule, on level ground, right lines and geometric curves are the most suitable for paths and flower-plots. In Boston, the Common and the Public Garden afford illustration, on the one hand of a mode of laying out which is reasonable and effective, and on the other of a mode which is weak and ineffective. A painter may find good subjects for his pencil in the Common, but he will not find many in the Public Garden. The filigreed east-iron railings which often inclose our public parks are unsightly objects which cannot he made to harmonize with anything beautiful. Plain or simply ornamented wrought-iron railings would be in no way offensive to the eye. Inclosure of some sort all such grounds ought to have. The fashion of leveling fences is objectionable because it takes away that expression of security and seclusion which are among the first requisites of pleasure grounds, whether public or private. A fence need never be a disagreeable object. On the contrary, it is, when reasonably designed and well constructed, a pleasant feature in any scene where it has a use. One of the most agreeable of all fences is the living hedge, for which we have so wide a variety of suitable shrubs that it is a wonder it is not more generally employed.

It is singular that in our parks, where the exigencies of economy and utility cannot be urged, a well-designed and well-constructed bridge of stone should so rarely appear. The discordant constructions of painted iron which so often do duty as bridges in public pleasure grounds invariably destroy the effect of every scene in which they occur, and, together with the mediocre statuary conspicuously mounted on showily ornate pedestals, do incalculable mischief in vulgarizing the public taste, while they drive to despair the artist in search of materials for pictures.

Subjects like the foregoing embrace about all that the Middle and New England States now afford which are at all suited to the purposes of the landscape painter. Other regions of the country, with exception, perhaps, of some portions of the South, hardly, I suppose, possess as much material for the artist. The vast regions of the West, though in many parts rich in varied and magnificent scenery, are as yet, for the most part, too newly settled to have attained the conditions that are essential to the painter. On the whole, though good subjects for painting are to be found in the older parts of the country, yet the discriminating admirer of landscape beauty cannot fail to feel that they are of very limited range, while those of a highly interesting kind are comparatively few. The scenes that most commonly meet our eyes, in our daily walks, are not such as to awaken artistic enthusiasm. This is not because our civilization is new. Picturesque material was far more abundant with us when it was newer. It is rather because we, at this time, in our treatment of nature, practically do not regard its beauty as of equal importance with the material services which it can be made to yield.

Under these conditions, it behooves those of us who value beauty, and all that it stands for, to do what we can to extend its appreciation. We ought to be modest in our estimate of the landscape art now produced, and to recognize the fact that its real improvement must necessarily be slow. The artist cannot be independent of the conditions which surround him. The most that he can do is to gather what is beat out of them. It behooves him to cultivate a spirit of discrimination in all that he delineates, By a habit of choice according to his apprehensions, a critical spirit, growing more and more just by exercise, will be formed in him, whereby the character of his art will he proportionately raised.

Charles H. Moore.