Some critic has written, had Coles' 'Voyage of Life' been executed in
verse, instead of a series of pictures, it would have ranked as one of
the grandest poems of the age. High art, then, whatever its kind, is the
language of the aesthetic feeling in man--it symbolizes the god-like
element in his nature. Cumulative and progressive, it keeps even pace
with an improving civilization, and should therefore furnish fairer
products to-day than in any period of the past. It assimilates the
spirit of the times in which it is exercised; for as Ralph Waldo Emerson
remarks in his subtle, essay: 'No man can quite emancipate himself from
his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the
religion, the politics, usages, and arts of his times shall have no
share.'
So we see from the very necessity of this truism, that if our painters
and sculptors would not be mere imitators of the exponents of another
age, there would be soon established a national school of art. We do not
mean by this a mere conventional type in finish and mode of treatment,
but certain marked, characteristic excellences and features that would
identify it with the history of our country and the peculiarities of our
people. There are a few native artists who have struggled to achieve
this consummation, and preeminent among these is Erastus D.
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