August 16th, 1857. —
I went again to the Exhibition day before yesterday, and looked much at both the modern and ancient pictures, as also at the watercolors. I am making some progress as a connoisseur, and have got so far as to be able to distinguish the broader differences of style, — as, for example, between Rubens and Rembrandt.
I should hesitate to claim any more for myself thus far. In fact, however, I do begin to have a liking for good things, and to be sure that they are good.
Murillo seems to me about the noblest and purest painter that ever lived, and his “Good Shepherd” the loveliest picture I have seen.
[Hawthorne’s wife Sophia had this to say about the Good Shepherd - “I could never be weary of looking at some of the masterpieces, to the end of my days. I should think the Good Shepherd would convert the Jew, Baron L. R., to Christianity.” Baron L.R. I assume to be Lionel Rothschild, the first Jewish Member of Parliament. Sophia went on to say . . .
The Exhibition must be quite thrown away on the mass of spectators.
Both they and I are better able to appreciate the specimens of ornamental art contained in the Oriental Room, and in the numerous cases that are ranged up and down the nave.
The gewgaws of all Time are here, in precious metals, glass, china, ivory, and every other material that could be wrought into curious and beautiful shapes;
great basins and dishes of embossed gold from the Queen’s sideboard, or from the beaufets of noblemen;
vessels set with precious stones;
the pastoral staffs of prelates, some of them made of silver or gold, and enriched with gems, and what have been found in the tombs of the bishops;
state swords, and silver maces;
the rich plate of colleges, elaborately wrought, — great cups, salvers, tureens, that have been presented by loving sons to their Alma Mater;
the heirlooms of old families, treasured from generation to generation, and hitherto only to be seen by favored friends;
famous historical jewels, some of which are painted in the portraits of the historical men and women that hang on the walls;
numerous specimens of the beautiful old Venetian glass, some of which looks so fragile that it is a wonder how it could bear even the weight of the wine, that used to be poured into it, without breaking. These are the glasses that tested poison, by being shattered into fragments at its touch.
The strangest and ugliest old crockery, pictured over with monstrosities, — the Palissy ware, embossed with vegetables, fishes, lobsters, that look absolutely real;
the delicate Sevres china, each piece made inestimable by pictures from a master’s hand;
— in short, it is a despair and misery to see so much that is curious and beautiful, and to feel that far the greater portion of it will slip out of the memory, and be as if we had never seen it. But I mean to look again and again at these things.
We soon perceive that the present day does not engross all the taste and ingenuity that has ever existed in the mind of man; that, in fact, we are a barren age in that respect.
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