Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/50

 38 George Fuller.

lowed, — a work full of fire and freedom, anticipate or dream, and the spectator's

strongly personal in suggestion, and interest was intensified at seeing in her

marked by a wild and impatient indi- and before her what she herself did not

viduality which revealed in the girl the perceive. That art can give such power

impression of a lawless ancestry, that of suggestion to its creations is a marvel

somehow and somewhere had felt the and a delight.

action of a finer strain of blood. The Following these two works — and at next year Fuller reached the highest some distance, although near enough point of his inspiration and power in to confirm and even increase the The Quadroon, a work which is likely painter's fame — came the Priscilla, to be held for all time as his master- Evening; Lorette, Nydia, Boy and piece, so far as strength of idea, im- Bird, Hannah, Psyche, and others, portance of motive, and vivid force of ending this year with the Arethusa, description are concerned. Without whose glowing and chastened love- violence, even without expression of liness makes it his strongest purely action, but simply by a pair of haunting artistic work, and confirms the techni- eyes, a beautiful, despairing face, and cal value of his method as completely a form confessing utter weariness and as The Quadroon and Winifred abandonment of hope, he revealed all Dysart do his habit of thought. He the national shame of slavery, and its painted innumerable landscapes, por- degradation of body and soul. Every traits, and ideal heads, and in figure American cannot but blush to look upon compositions produced, among others, it, so simple and dignified is its rebuke two works of great and permanent of the nation's long perversity and guilt, value, the And She Was a Witch, and The artist's next important effort was The Gatherer of Simples, to whose the famous Winifred Dysart, as far absorbing interest all who have studied removed in purpose from The Quad- them closely will confess. The latter, roon as it could well be, yet akin particularly, is of importance as show- to it by its added testimony to the ing how carefully Fuller studied into painter's constant sympathy with weak the secret of expression, and of nature's and beseeching things, and worthy to sympathy with human moods. This stand at an equal height with the pic- poor, worn, sad, old face, in which ture of the slave by virtue of its beauty beauty and hope shone once, and of conception, loveliness of character, where resignation and memory now and pathetic appeal to the interest, dwell ; this trembling figure, to whose It was in all respects as typical decrepitude the bending staff confesses and comprehensive as The Quadroon as she totters down the hill ; the gath- itself, holding within its face and figure ering gloom of the sky, in which one all the sweetness and innocence of ray of promise for a bright to-morrow New - England girlhood, yet with the shines from the setting sun ; the mute shadow of an uncongenial experience witnessing of the trees upon the hill, brooding over it, and perhaps of in- which have seen her pass and repass herited weakness and early death. And from joyful youth to lonely age, and the wonder of it all was that the girl even her eager grasp upon the poor had no sign about herself of longing or treasure of herbs that she bears, — discontent ; she was not of a nature to all these items of the scene impress

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