we have seen that testifies to the concentrated brooding over luminous tones and harmonies of hue which gives its quality of intensity to Mr. Ryder's most characteristic work. His touch is lighter, freer, more buoyant, more natural, and less magical. Its range is greater and its power of moving correspondingly slighter. With less poetry, it has more intelligence, strictly so called is cleverer, surer, more the servant of the painter. But he shares with Mr. Ryder that amateur quality which, when it is either truly poetic or cleverly managed, or both, is a delightful element in art, and, from its rarity, in American art especially. We endeavored, long ago, to say how Mr. Ryder's works impressed us, and he is not here in question, though, having mentioned him, it may be said in passing that since that time he has more than fulfilled the promise he then displayed. Mr. Bunce's are more difficult to speak of with closeness. He is one of the newest of the new men, and only last year won the full measure of attention which he undoubtedly deserves. We believe he owes no master any allegiance, though he painted long in Europe, and to compare his pictures to those of Felix Ziem, as they have been compared, shows a contrast in all points except that they agree in being, for the most part, marines, and in relying on color. Original, accordingly, Mr. Bunce's work must be called; and doubtless if he were fond of studying and judging it himself he would come to the same conclusion. But doubtless, also, he, better than any one else, could tell why, being original, it is not more impressive. It is certainly interesting and attractive. We do not care so much for those large marines shrouded in scumbled mist which introduced Mr. Bunce to the New York public two years ago, and which he contributed last year to the exhibition of the Society of American Artists. There was observable in these, to be sure, an agreeable avoidance of the theatrical, as well as what may be called the sentimental, employment of color, to one or the other of which painters of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic are too often addicted. But, to our mind at least, both this avoidance and the effort to substitute soft aërial atmospheric effects seemed a little distinct and conscious. They seemed to say to the observer: "You have, all along, been laboring under a great mistake. What you have supposed to be color is a mere jumble of hues more or less discordant, striking, gorgeous, or what not, and can be obtained very cheaply. But properly speaking, it is not color at all. This is color; and, though it may not seem so at first, because it is not glaringly evident like the canvases you have been accustomed to regard as color, if you look at it a while you will see how pervaded it is with warmth and tone, how pleasantly elusive its modulations are, and how quietly charming is the whole effect of it." And though, if this be not too fanciful an interpretation of their import, these pictures may be said to have performed a valuable missionary service, such a service can only be called incidental in thoroughly satisfactory art. We liked much better the moonlight Venice which Mr. Bunce sent to the Academy last year, and which was evidently the product of an unmixed and genuine impression. This avoided quite as successfully the ordinary conventionalities of color, and had, in addition, the positive charms of rich and liquid tones. Along with this one could not fail to notice what, in fact, was its main attraction, that, liquid and rich as it was in color, and thoroughly imbued as the painter had evidently been with a sense of the beauty of color, it was distinctly a Venetian moonlight, and not merely a "nocturne." No one can have a greater respect for "nocturnes" than we have. There are many who have ineradicable a priori objections to them, but we cherish no illusions of the sort, and are free to like what seems on its face likable without inquiring too curiously into its legitimacy. Nevertheless, the painting of "nocturnes" is surrounded with discouraging difficulties, and until Mr. Bunce tries his hand at them avowedly and definitely, it will be safe to rest content with such frank treatment as in this picture he displayed. Owing to his use of color as material instead of as an end, and to the directness with which he painted what there was visible to his eye and suggested to his mind when he made his study (materially or mentally it matters. not which, of course), his Venetian moonlight depends for its interest not on Venice and its familiar and hackneyed romantic attractiveness, but on qualities of its own. However, the picture had limitations obvious enough, perhaps, and in the direction of its merits. It was not altogether "inevitable,” and the same may be said of a good deal of Mr. Bunce's work that has been exhibited here. And as we suggested, perhaps he himself, considering how rare a thing originality is, and how impressive a work that is original in any real sense must be, and knowing his own powers, and the facility which they give him, could best explain why it is that, with all his admirable qualities, he yet fails to rivet one's interest firmly. One of two explanations must be the true one: either he is too subtle and poetic a painter, and by consequence careless of the obvious and tangible excellences upon which the wayfarer is accustomed to hang his admiration; or he is a clever, facile, and buoyant genius, delighting in his art for the pleasure which it gives him, esteeming difficulties lightly, because it is easy for him to conquer all that he sees, and full of sensitiveness, appreciation, aspiration, healthful confidence, and other qualities which the trained amateur shares with the born artist. If he should do more of such work as a bit of stilllife a few inches square to be seen at the Cottier Gallery some time ago, there would be no doubt of his being a born decorative painter, at all events: it represented a couple of apples and so on, and was not only a rich piece of color, but beautifully painted in respect of quality and serious, contained expression in general. ject of such peculiarities. No disparagement of the dignity of portraiture compared with other departments of painting is implied, however, in adding immediately that this portrait furnished no test of Mr. Volk's imaginative force. In both color and composition it avoided failure so far as appeared by not challenging any of the difficulties of | either. Its success, in other respects than those mentioned, lay in its admirable drawing and in the discriminating rendering of its different textures. The discovery of Mr. Volk's invention and his æsthetic qualities generally is made in other works-in "The Puritan Maiden," here engraved, for example. There is something very pleasant in the sentiment of this, aside from the noticeably excellent "handling" evident in the snow. It tells its story with clearness, as all genre of the sort of course should, but it is agreeably reserved in expression, and the subject is treated pictorially rather than in literary fashion. It loses thus naturally the quality which Mr. Boughton's literary insistence, for example, would secure-an intellectual or sentimental refinement, that is to say. Mr. Douglas Volk is another of the But if not subtly poetic it is at any rate painters whose work has only recently been pretty, and yet dignified in both idea and seen here. The portrait that introduced expression. The same is true, mutatis_muhim to the New York public at the Academy tandis, of two small and unpretending landa year ago yet remains the best thing he has scapes sent respectively to the last Society of shown. It was, however, a work of so American Artists' Exhibition and its predemuch merit, and so evidently an important cessor. The truth is, that Mr. Volk's work production of a trained painter, that to look is of that kind which disposes one to take for the speedy improvement upon it which the most favorable view possible of it; even it is the fashion to demand of "new men" toward his rather confused picture which would imply a misjudgment of its qualities. accompanied "The Puritan Maiden" to the It showed clearly enough that Mr. Volk Academy this year, and which seems more was a "new man" only in the sense of being like picture-making (of a pardonable enough new to us. At the same time, one could sort, however) than anything he has done, it easily see that Mr. Volk's future was likely is impossible not to take this view. But in to be of more interest than his past, and if it, as in his portrait of a "Fencing-Master," it had not a youthful look it could not be there is nevertheless a trace of alloy that called mature. Most of our readers must will be rejected before Mr. Volk makes the remember the picture: a blonde young lady, position among his fellow-painters which with black dress, hat, and gloves, seated side- belongs to him absolutely secure. How to wise, her face turned toward the observer and characterize it one scarcely knows, but perrelieved against a yellow background; the haps it would not be inaccurate to attribute whole painted in a key high enough to give it to a judgment of popular appreciation it an air of vivacity, enforced rather than en- that is a little careless and hasty. Popular feebled by the abundant contrasting blacks. appreciation has made a great advance The effect was very real, and the face within the time that has elapsed since Mr. and figure individualized so happily as to Volk began to paint and think of subjects make one forget, in recognition of its perfect and their treatment. It is still, to be sure, simplicity, the difficulty of realizing so com- in large measure content with work greatly pletely the charm of a lively and attractive inferior to Mr. Volk's worst. But nothing girl. Any one who studied the canvas is more certain than that, for this kind of must have given the painter deserved credit appreciation, it is hopeless for an artist to for failing to vulgarize in any degree a sub-compete with his inferiors. So-called "pop ular art" seems somehow to have its own secret, undiscoverable by real talent in spite of every effort to attain it-according to the law which prescribes natural sincerity as the first condition in all art. So that successful mediocrity implies in general a natural turn for it in the painter who arrives at it. And it is therefore a sign of Mr. Volk's inaptitude for it that his own departures in its direction should appear as unsuccessful as they do. An inferior painter might easily have owed something to the theatricality of flinging a mass of white into the center of a large dark canvas, but in Mr. Volk's portrait of M. Senac the manage (GEORGE W. MAYNARD.) ment of the white gauntlet is felt at once to be trivial and unhappy-and, as we say, by many more people than would have quarreled with it not so very long ago. In the same way, it must also be said, one may fail by inattention to, as well as by misconception of, one's natural audience, and that the background of the portrait first mentioned is an instance of this. Altogether, it is probable that Mr. Volk's serious work is yet to come-after he has become more singly devoted to some ideal worthy of his really uncommon powers. Of these, drawing is evidently the first, and so good a draughtsman is he that it will not be considered out of place here to congratulate the schools of the Cooper Union upon his professorship there. There have been few as conspicuous examples of broad and firm drawing as the drapery of this portrait; and its drawing was what saved the picture of a sleeping child enfolded in the ultra-Ethiopian arms of a nurse outside the frame, which Mr. Volk sent to the last Artists' Fund Society Exhibition. Portraiture is also the forte of Mr. George W. Maynard. That of Mr. Millet looksin the engraving, at least-rather photographic, but one can see that in character delineation and in painting it is probably one of the painter's successes. His work is curiously unequal, it must have been observed. In the Academy Exhibition of 1880, for example, there was a family interior whose awkwardness was in striking contrast with the graceful traits of the large portrait in an adjoining room. One could not help trying to account for the difference, and it may pardonably be attributed to a lack of the critical poise and acumen which should warn a painter when he is erring, elementarily, at all events, though doubtless the unattractiveness of subject in the failure compared with the attractiveness of the subject in the success is to be partly blamed. That, however, is really the affair of the painter himself, and besides cutting both ways it would not serve as a plea more than once or twice,. say. The larger canvas-which was curiously mis-catalogued "A Mexican Portrait," by the way-was not only a success, but one of the most noteworthy successes of an exhibition in which there were several. It was an excellent piece of painting, in large masses, and in arrangement remarkably graceful and winning; so that an occasional imperfection, like the blending of the charming figure's hair with the background, seemed a solecism. Now and then Mr. Maynard's inspiration seems to fail him in just this way, and of much of his work-such as a pretty conceit of a girl, or goddess, sailing the empyrean in a crescent, which was sent to the last Salmagundi Exhibitionone wonders why, since it is so pleasing, it is not even more so. Mediocrity always threatens when effort is relaxed, and it is so evidently within Mr. Maynard's ability to. keep above it, that one wishes sometimes he were a little more acutely sensible of the ease with which one unconsciously falls into it, and of the loss to one's importance which an occasional lapse must involve. Of a painter whose powers were really even MARKET DAY BY THE CATHEDRAL STEPS, MORLAIX, BRITTANY. (LOUIS C. TIFFANY.) mediocre it would not, of course, occur to any one to say this, and it is said here mainly to suggest that Mr. Maynard is not fairly judged if he is judged, as he sometimes has been, by the unmistakable mediocrity he has once or twice exhibited. On their decorative sides, Mr. Louis C. Tiffany and Mr. Francis Lathrop, who are not to be classed among the younger painters with exactness, may be loosely considered with them. Mr. Lathrop was, we believe, one of the original band of devoted preRaphaelites whose mild earnestness of |