a criticism that has been frequently made (and not unjustly) on the morale of certain works of art, has no application to this.
Of the details of this ideal creation—its matchless finish, the graceful undulations of the perfect form, the firmness expressed in the clenched fingers, the instinctive shudder gathered on the fair brow, the lofty defiance of the eyes and half-parted lips, the radiant beauty of the face—we can only say they live in our memory, but too deep for words. We believe the truth of the artist's conception, that the revengeful savages acknowledged the divinity of her beauty and Christian reliance, and the 'White Captive' went free—the spirit of civilization triumphed!
As a man's character is always more or less associated with his achievements, the reader may wish to learn something of Mr. Palmer as a man. In all kinds of soul-work, there is ever perceptible a certain flavor of the mind which produces it, and the things thus created usually suggest the qualities of the creator. So the works of the sculptor are to some degree the exponents of his character, the expressions of his inner life.
Therefore in Mr. Palmer we should expect moral and intellectual worth of a high order, added to the purest and most exalted motives. He is in spirit a reformer, taking an interest in every measure for the improvement of our race, and sympathizing with every struggle of our aspiring manhood.
The eccentricities, excuses, and conventional affectations of many real and pretended geniuses he entirely eschews, feeling himself one of the people, and laboring for their elevation.
Neither does he deem it any part of genius to neglect his family, forget to pay his butcher's bill, and ignore the claim of his tailor. His ample house and neat atelier, at the north end of Eagle street, in the city of Albany, are the fruit of his patient and inspiring toil—his chisel has won him moderate fortune as well as world-wide fame.
Photographs of the 'Palmer Marbles' are seen in the show windows of Paris, London, and Berlin, while in this country they help to fill the portfolios of the virtuoso, adorning the walls of the parlor and the private gallery.
Though in youth Palmer did not receive an average common-school education, he converses like a man of liberal culture, showing that he belongs to the class of self-made men.
He has never visited the interminable art palaces of Europe, nor studied, in the sense in which that term is used, the 'old masters;' still he has appropriated all the valuable hints to be obtained from the classic models, without regarding them as the ne plus ultra of artistic execution, and therefore to be only imitated, to the exclusion of the higher ideals of an advanced civilization.
He has an intelligible and correct theory in regard to the fidelity of art to nature. For instance, he insists that he should represent, not imitate; and in making a bust of a man, the sculptor should express the higher moods of his subject, and show him with his better qualities brought to the surface. So the forms of nature should be idealized in the direction of their primitive tendency, and thus art help to express that ineffable longing of the soul, that reaching upward for a perfection that is approximated on earth, but never attained. This idealization is like the humor of Dickens, something more than nature in its grotesqueness, yet a stimulated growth of the natural quality. Palmer always takes nature for his model, and then assimilates it to that ideal beauty which dwells in his imagination and sheds a spiritual halo over the creation of his chisel.
Like every true disciple of genius, he feels that he has a mission to perform, and that he is responsible for the influence he exerts on the tastes and æsthetic culture of the people. As you chat with him in his studio, dressed in his blouse and cap, his dark eye glowing with enthusiasm for his art, or sparkling with playful humor, standing before you tall and vigorous, you see in him one of the earnest workers for the elevation of our humanity.
The utilities of the world will take care of themselves: let us foster the beautiful, because, like all divine attributes, man reaches it through striving, and is made better by its contemplation.
Palmer does not look older than forty, and has perhaps not yet attained the fulness of his powers, but has in him the elements of a healthy growth.
Work on, thou almoner of sweetest joys, thou pilgrim in that fairy realm whence come the high ideals of life; work on, striver for the perfect type of beauty and of truth, and in thy progress let the people trace our human nature rising to diviner heights—expanding to sublimer bounds!
CLOUDS
High and fathomless above us vaults the pure aerial sky,
Solemn bends its arch of Beauty round a world where all things die.
On the dome through which Earth's swinging, spun of palpitating air,
Angel artists fresco vapors into pictures passing fair.
No cold canvas of dead color has the Mighty Master given:
Trembles with His Infinity the azure vault of Heaven.
On and in the lucent background float the ever-changeful forms,
Sometimes glowing into glory, sometimes glooming into storms.
God's blest seal is on creation; signs and symbols throng the sky,
Though too dull to read their meaning droops the stolid human eye.
Over mountain, over valley throng the clouds to soothe the sight;
Through the dim walls of the city gleam they buoyant, fleeting, bright.
Gentle, dreadful, or fantastic—nearer, farther as we gaze;
Varied, spiritual, tender, forms and melts the surging haze.
'Heavenly secrets' breathe around us—lowly flowers on the sod,
Cloudland's curves and grading colors veil the Infinite of God.
The Infinite—we shudder! but wild longings through us steal
As we vainly strive to grasp It till our failing senses reel.
Ever longing, never grasping, though in tenderness It stoop
To shade the scented cups of flowers, to bend them as they droop.
For through infinite gradations pass the changeful hues of light,
That the infinite through color may send greetings to the sight.
Through ne'er-returning, endless curves, flowers, trees, clouds, mountains pass,
That man may see the Infinite through nature's magic glass.
Oh, tender stooping! soothing! Infinite Love must be
The cause, aim, end, the burning heart of everything we see.
Earth may cover deep her dying, parted hearts chant weary dirge,
But we feel death is but seeming in the Cloudland's evening surge.
Floating high above the mountains, in the fields of upper air,
Multitudinous throng the Cirri, ranged in order, heavenly fair.
Rank upon rank in glory lie the transverse, plumy bars;
Tranquil beauty rules the union which disorder never mars.
Perfect symmetry, obedience, mark their finely chiselled lines—
In the highest sphere of being flexile grace with law combines.
Now they break in fleecy ripples as innumerably they press;
Shines the blue of Heaven between them as they fly the Wind's caress.
Millions
