rand
Canal_, _The Return from the Fete of the Madonna_, etc.); but the most
remarkable of these little Italian masters is Pasini, the Orientalist.
His _Suburbs of Constantinople_ and his _Promenade in the Garden of the
Harem_ are pictures on which the eye may feast, so finely drawn are
their diminutive figures, so wonderful is their variety of intense
color--yellow, blue, green, rose--and so clear and transparent withal,
startling and amusing us like a display of fireworks.

In the English section are plenty of old acquaintances: we have seen
them at Philadelphia, in London and I know not where besides. Frith's
_Railway Station_ and _Derby Day_ we all remember, so badly realistic
and modern, and the _Casual Ward_ of Fildes--pictures that have gained
in England the popularity and success due to veritable works of art, and
in Paris the sort of praise we should give to a large colored
photograph--if it were well done. This English school is hardly to our
taste: Leslie, Leighton, Millais, Orchardson, the painters most in vogue
in their own country, have not succeeded in overcoming the cold
indifference of the public, who pass through the galleries without
caring even to stop. Whence comes the strange disregard for art in a
country which lavishes such vast sums for the encouragement of artists?
Here are canvases which have been covered with gold, but Parisian
criticism treats them as contemptuously as if they were mere
chromo-lithographs. The English school is severely condemned for its
inharmonious colors, which are either too violent or too cold; for its
drawing, which is without what we call _distinction_; and for that
unaccountable light which seems to shine through their figures from
within, giving many of the heads the appearance of lanterns. Naturally,
Professor Ruskin comes in for his share of this harsh criticism--which,
I beg my readers to observe, is not ventured as my own, but is only the
echo of the opinion of competent authorities, members of the Institute
of France--and the veteran apostle of Pre-Raphaelism is accused of an
affected simplicity, and, at the same time, of an offensive and coarse
realism, of a mongrel combination of the styles of Courbet and of the
old missals, of a want of perspective, and, in short, of all the faults
which mark the contemporary English school.

It was only at the last moment that Germany decided to exhibit, and it
would be hardly fair to judge of the art of that country by the