I doubt whether any other
man has ever ventured to paint a picture like either of these two, the
Italian sunset or the American autumnal foliage. Mr. Wilde, who is still
young, talked with genuine feeling and enthusiasm of his art, and is
certainly a man of genius.
We next went to the studio of an elderly Swiss artist, named Mueller, I
believe, where we looked at a great many water-color and crayon drawings
of scenes in Italy, Greece, and Switzerland. The artist was a quiet,
respectable, somewhat heavy-looking old gentleman, from whose aspect one
would expect a plodding pertinacity of character rather than quickness of
sensibility. He must have united both these qualities, however, to
produce such pictures as these, such faithful transcripts of whatever
Nature has most beautiful to show, and which she shows only to those who
love her deeply and patiently. They are wonderful pictures, compressing
plains, seas, and mountains, with miles and miles of distance, into the
space of a foot or two, without crowding anything or leaving out a
feature, and diffusing the free, blue atmosphere throughout.
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