Two of Saint Gaudens' groups adorn enormous
pedestals at either side of the entrance. Inside, on the walls
of the grand stairway, are magnificent paintings by John La
Farge and others, while on the four sides of the main public
room are mural paintings by La Farge, depicting the entire
history of Sir Arthur and the Holy Grail.
Just before crossing the river into Charlestown one's attention
is directed to a small triangular space surrounded by an iron
fence, no side of which is more than five or six feet long, in
which is growing a single tree. To this is attached a sign
proclaiming that "Dogs are not allowed in this park." Just
across the river, not far from Bunker Hill Monument, is the Navy
Yard.
The museum of Fine Arts in Boston contains many important works
from both the old and modern masters. Here you will see Turner's
"Slave Ship." "This picture has been the cause of more criticism
than any that has ever been brought to our shores. Every
gradation of opinion was expressed from Ruskin's extravagant
enconium where he says, 'I believe if I were induced to rest
Turner's immortality upon any single work I should choose the
Slave Ship; the color is absolutely perfect,' to the frank
disapproval of our own George Innes, when he says that it is
'the most infernal piece of clap-trap ever painted. There is
nothing in it. It is not even a fine bouquet of colors.' Some
one said it looks like a 'tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a
platter of tomatoes.' The lurid light that streams through the
mist of the angry sea intensifies a scene already too horrible."
Whoever has seen the peasants of France in their own harvest
fields near Barbizon will not fail to recognize the close
relations and the intimate knowledge Millet had of these humble
peasants. As you gaze at the great mounds of wheat with the
crowd of laborers resting, you seem to catch the very spirit of
the dignity of labor that the artist so admirably portrays in
all his work. You see not only these particular toilers but all
the laborers of earth, who by the sweat of their brows make the
earth yield her increase.
"His figures seem to be uncouth and of the earth; they are
children of Nature who have been so long in contact with the
elements and soil they seem to partake of the sternness of the
landscape quite as much as the sturdy oaks tried by the storms
and stress of unnumbered days of exposure. His Shepherdess is
also worth considering and represents his aim in art." These are
his words: "I would wish that the beings I represent should have
the air of being consecrated to their position, and that it
should be impossible to imagine that the idea could occur to
them of their being other than that which they are - the
beautiful is the suitable."
What poems of grace and beauty the works of Corot are!
