The progress of the arts in the United States has depended, in a great measure, on their practical reference to the essential comforts of life. In the mechanical arts, we yield to no other nation, as our ships, steamboats, engines of every description, and vast internal improvements, sufficiently testify. The prevailing taste in architecture is much better than it was twenty years ago, and it is now considered of great importance to have regard to the appearance of a public edifice. Many private houses of much splendor have also been erected within a short period. Our churches and state-houses are built after better models, and the eye of taste is no longer shocked by unsightly piles, without even the recommendation of antiquity to compensate for their defects.

Of the fine arts, however, painting has been most successfully cultivated, and many artists have won, in this department, very considerable eminence. The materials for an account of the history and present condition of painting in this country, are so scattered and unsatisfactory, that we shall be able to present but a brief sketch. We are pleased to learn that a gentleman of New York, distinguished as a dramatic author and as an artist, has a work in preparation, that will effectually supply this deficiency in our literature. This work is expected with much interest by the lovers of art. In the mean while, we must look to the leading review of the country, for some of the most valuable notices of American art. For the remainder of this chapter, we have been entirely indebted to the North American Review, for October, 1830.

It is stated by an able writer in that work, that few countries have done more in the way of painting, during the last half century, than our own. There is no nation which, during that period, can produce a more respectable list of artists than is composed by the names of Copley, West, Trumbull, Allston, Leslie, Newton, Stuart, Sully, Morse, Doughty, Peale, Harding, Fisher, and Weir. Several of these artists have been, and still continue to be, the chief ornaments of the British school, which, for the time in question belongs at least as much to the United States as to the mother country. The style of painting in France, during this period, has been decidedly vicious, and although it has obtained there a temporary popularity, it is not approved by competent judges, who have been educated under the influence of a better taste. In the rest of Europe, there has been little or no activity in this branch of the arts; so that the United States have done as much for painting during the last fifty years, as any other country.

In estimating the merits of our various painters, the article to which we have referred, places West at the head of the list. ‘The length of his career,’ continues this writer,—‘his conspicuous position at the head of the British Academy, and the indefatigable perseverance with which he pursued his labors up to the very close of his protracted life—all these circumstances placed him in full relief before the public, and perhaps raised his reputation a little higher than it will be maintained by the impartial judgment of posterity. Perceiving or supposing that his merit was exaggerated, a certain number of persons were induced, as always happens in similar cases, by a sort of re-action, to depreciate the value of his works, and even to deny altogether his pretensions to excellence. Without speaking of Peter Pindar, who attacked him merely because he was patronized by the king, we may find the feeling to which we allude exhibited in a quarter where we had a right to look for good taste and political impartiality. Lord Byron, in one of his poems, describes our illustrious countryman as

But even here the noble bard, however opposite may have been his intention, has borne a sort of involuntary testimony to the high deserts of the painter. The British school, which, in his wayward humor, he represents as the worst in Europe, was undoubtedly at that time, and still is, the best, and by putting West at the head of it, he rendered him, in fact, all the justice which his warmest friends could possibly have claimed for him. His real merit was very considerable, although he may not have risen precisely to the level of the greatest masters of other times. It was sufficiently evinced by the great popularity and success of his last and best pieces, the Christ Rejected, and the grand composition of Death on the Pale Horse. We had the pleasure of seeing these noble paintings, when they were first brought out at London, and witnessed the enthusiasm which they excited among the lovers of the arts, and the public at large. The sum of ten thousand pounds was offered for the latter work—a higher price, probably, than was ever commanded by any other picture. As there was nothing meretricious in the style of West, and as the public of a city like London is not often very widely mistaken in matters wholly unconnected with any accidental or temporary interest, it is impossible to account for this extraordinary vogue, without allowing to the artist a talent of a very high order. His works exhibit, in reality, almost all the qualities that designate a first-rate painting. His walk lay in the highest department of the art. His subjects were always of a poetical cast, and he treated them all in a large, free and generous spirit; and while he possessed the principal requisites of a great painter, his manner was almost wholly free from faults. He had, in particular, the great merit of avoiding the unnatural style of coloring which prevailed in the neighboring kingdom, and seemed likely, at one time, to corrupt the taste of the rest of Europe. His excellent moral character contributed much to his talent, and still more to his fortune. It kept him steady to his profession, during a period of violent political convulsions, which swept away from their natural occupation almost all the high and stirring spirits. It recommended him to the favor of the king, and through that to the presidency of the academy, and it preserved his health and capacity for constant employment, to the last moment of a very long life. He enjoyed the rare happiness of realizing, in his life-time, his full deserts on the score of reputation—perhaps something more—and of laboring with undiminished activity, and a constant increase of fame, beyond the ordinary term of human existence. We had the satisfaction of seeing him frequently in his last days, and have seldom known a more striking example of a serene and happy old age. He was then, at nearly eighty, a healthy, handsome man, busily occupied upon his last and greatest works, and enjoying the vogue which they successively obtained on their first exhibition. The natural simplicity and modesty of his manner were mingled with a slight air of self-importance, and conscious satisfaction with his recent success, which appeared rather graceful than otherwise in one so much respected, and so far advanced in years. The freshness and vigor of his mind were truly remarkable. He was still alive to every means of improving himself, and when the Athenian marbles were received in England, he addressed a printed letter to lord Elgin, in which he spoke of this event as forming a sort of epoch in his life, and anticipated the great advantage which he should derive from the study of these admirable remains of antiquity in the further prosecution of his labors, which, however, were very soon after brought to a close.

‘We have said above that the manner of West was almost wholly free from faults. His conceptions are noble, his drawing correct, his coloring true, and his composition skilful and spirited. If we miss any thing in his paintings, it is, perhaps, the secret indescribable charm of coloring, which, like the curious felicity of language in some writers, seems to be a sort of natural “grace, beyond the reach of art,” but affording, at the same time, a higher delight than any of those beauties, which can be more distinctly analyzed and defined. Of this, Sir Joshua Reynolds possessed a larger share than West, and will, probably, on that account, be always ranked above him in the general scale of merit.

‘The paintings of West, which remained in his possession at his death, were offered for sale soon after, and we have anxiously desired, that the whole or a portion of them should have taken the direction of this country. They would have formed a most interesting and valuable addition to our collections, and would then have reached what may fairly be considered their natural destination, the birth-place and original home of their author. We are not exactly informed what disposition has been made of them, and venture to hope that the expectation we have expressed may still, in part, at least, be realized.

‘The general reputation of Trumbull is hardly equal to that of West, although the Sortie from Gibraltar is perhaps superior in effect to any single production of the latter artist. This noble picture may justly be ranked with the finest productions of the pencil, and would forever secure to its author, had he done nothing else, a rank with the greatest masters of the art. If his success has been, on the whole, inferior to that of his illustrious contemporary, it is probably because his devotion to his profession has not been so exclusive. The important military and political occupations, in which he was engaged during a considerable portion of the most active part of his life, diverted his attention for the time from painting, and when he afterwards resumed the pencil, he seemed to have lost, in some degree, the vigor and freshness of his youthful talent. Hence his reputation has not continued to increase with his years, and his last works have not, like those of West, been regarded as his best. The four great paintings, on subjects connected with the revolutionary war, which he executed for congress, have, on the whole, hardly satisfied the public expectation, and for that reason have, perhaps, been depreciated below their real worth. They are all valuable pieces, and the Declaration of Independence, which we look upon as the best of the series, is one of a very high order. They derive a great additional interest from exhibiting portraits, as far as they could be obtained, of the signers of the declaration, and of the other patriots and warriors, who took a part in the memorable action of the revolution. We incline to believe that these paintings, should the liberality of congress allow the appropriation necessary for keeping them in existence, will gradually gain upon the public opinion, both as works of art, and as historical memorials, and be viewed by the next generation with more interest than they are by the present one.

‘Of our living native artists, Mr.Allston is the one, to whose future productions the country looks, with reason, for the most brilliant exhibitions of talent, and the most valuable accessions to our public and private collections. Few painters have ever possessed, at his age, a higher reputation, or one acquired by nobler means; and from his character and habits, there is room to suppose that his fame will continue to increase, like that of West, to the last period of his labors. Inspired by that exclusive and passionate love for his profession, which is the sure characteristic of a real genius for it, and by a lofty and generous disinterestedness, which has prevented him from consecrating his pencil to its lower and more lucrative departments, he has, under some discouragements, steadily confined himself to historical, scriptural, and poetical subjects, and has formed his manner upon the highest standard of excellence. His conceptions are uniformly happy, and, when the subject requires it, sublime; his taste and skill, in the mechanical details of his art, complete; and he knows how to give his works the secret charm to which we alluded before, and which adds the last finish to every other beauty. If there be any thing to complain of in him, it is that he is not satisfied himself with the degree of merit, which would satisfy every one else, and employs in correcting, maturing, and repainting a single piece, not always, perhaps, with any real accession of effect, the time and labor which would have been sufficient for completing a dozen. This extreme fastidiousness may have been, at an earlier period of life, a virtue, and is probably one of the qualities, which have enabled the artist to realize the high idea of excellence, which originally warmed his young fancy. But, if we might venture to express an opinion on the subject, we should say that the time has now arrived, when he might throw it off with advantage, and allow himself a greater rapidity of execution. His manner is formed. He possesses his talent, whatever it is, and, as we remarked above, when we treated the same question in general terms, the more freely and fearlessly he exercises it, the more natural and spirited, and, on the whole, the better will be the product. We trust that he will not permit another year to pass over, without putting the last hand to the grand heroic composition, upon which he has been employed so many, and that this will be followed by a series of others, of equal merit, and of a rather more rapid growth. By this change in his manner of working, we believe that he would gain in ease and spirit, without sacrificing any real beauty, and would labor, on the whole, with infinitely more satisfaction and profit to himself and the public, than he does now. We offer these remarks, however, with all the deference that is due from mere amateurs to an artist of consummate genius, who is, after all, the only true judge of effect in his art, and of the best means of producing it.’