at an interest in
pictures is unmistakably widespread. People are there in
considerable numbers, and what is more striking, they seem to
represent every station and walk in life. It is evident that pictures, as
exhibited to the public, are not the cult of an initiated few; their
appeal is manifestly to no one class; and this popular interest is as
genuine as it is extended.

Thus reflectively scanning the crowd, the observer asks himself:
What has attracted these numbers to that which might be supposed
not to be understood of the many? And what are the pictures that in
general draw the popular attention?

A few persons have of course drifted into the exhibition out of
curiosity or from lack of something better to do. So much is evident
at once, for these file past the walls listlessly, seldom stopping, and
then but to glance at those pictures which are most obviously like
the familiar object they pretend to represent,--such as the bowl of
flowers which the beholder can almost smell, the theatre-checks and
five-dollar note pasted on a wall which tempt him to finger them, or
the panel of game birds which puzzles him to determine whether the
birds are real or not. These visitors, however, are not the most
numerous. With the great majority it is not enough that the picture
be a clever piece of imitation or illusion: transferring their interest
from the mere execution, they demand further that the subjects
represented shall be pleasing. The crowd pause before a sunny
landscape, with cows standing by the shaded pool; they gather about
the brilliant portrait of a woman splendidly arrayed,--a favorite
actress or a social celebrity; they linger before a group of children
wading in a brook, or a dog crouching mournfully by an empty
cradle. At length, with an approving and sympathetic word of
comment, they pass on to the next pleasing picture. Some canvases,
not the most popular ones, are yet not without their interest for a few;
these visitors are taking things a little more seriously; they do not try
to see every picture, they do not hurry; they seem to be considering
the canvas immediately before them with concentrated attention.

No one of all these people is insensible to the appeal of the
picturesque: their presence at the exhibition is evidence of that. In
life they like to see a bowl of flowers, a sunny landscape, a beautiful
woman in beautiful surroundings; and naturally they are interested
in that which represents an