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The Artists' Fund Society.
Boston, or Philadelphia,-far as it may
be yet beyond the reach of all, Mr.
Moore included. For in this " Winter
Study " there is more accurate percep-
tion and more faithful rendering of all
the facts of nature taken together, near
and far, small and great, distinct and
vague, local and general, than in any
landscape picture of the past year by
any American artist, so far as we know
or have seen.
It is in the highest degree hopeful
that, as Mr. Mloore's work grows more
powerful, it becomes not less delicate,
but even more minutely truthful in de-
tail. There is an ideal of landscape art
which perhaps has never been reached
by human work. We have no wish to
say or even hint that Mr. Moore is like-
ly to reach that ideal. But it is to the
credit of his work that it makes that
ideal a little more conceivable. That
ideal is the perfect union of detail and
general effect.  Let us illustrate our
meaning. We have often seen attempts,
well intended, meritorious, powerful,
to show together, on one canvass, foli-
age and herbage in the near foreground
and on a large scale, and distant forest
and mountain.   We have never seen
the attempt succeed. The imaginable
better thing is not vague or a dream,
but is very positive, and always seems
not impossible to realize,-that is, to
paint. The ideal of landscape is not
the submitting of special truths to gen-
eral truths, but the full realization of all
the truths in perfect harmony with each
other. The ideal of landscape is not a
correcting of nature, but a stopping
short of the whole truth of nature, just
so far as is made necessary by the physi-
cal limitations of art, and a stopping
short in the best (i. e., the least injuri-
ous) way. This ideal is, so far as we
know, yet to be reached. It will not
be reached, probably, in a time when
art is nothing to the mass of the people,
and to the connoisseurs little else than a
subject for talk and dispute.  It will
not be reached until the time shall come
when affectation shall be very much less
common than now, and love of nature
much more general; not until most of
the artists are working properly, and
most of the people interested in their
work, and most of the critics doing what
they can to help both artists and peo-
ple. Therefore, we do not hope that
Mr. Moore will reach it, even in those
moments when his picture seems the
fairest and his way of work the most
satisfying. We thank his picture that
it makes the attainment of the ideal
seem not so far in the future as it would
seem without it.
We heartily admire Mr. Thos. C.
Farrer's picture, No. 279, " Northamp-
ton," and yet it is, to us, rather a disap-
pointment than a delight. It does not
seem to us to be hopeful. All that there
has been good in Mr. Farrer's landscapes
of the last three years, is bettered in
this, but much that has been deficient
or faulty is as bad or worse than ever.
We cannot but feel, we repeat, less
hopeful of Mr. Farrer's future as a land-
scape painter, than we felt before seeing
this last, most powerful, most impres-
sive of the pictures he has exhibited.
An artist generally has it in his own
power to bring to nought the prognosti-
cations of his critics, both for good or
evil. It is foolish to prophesy very
positively concerning the future of a
man's life and works, because there are
two elements that will go to make up
that future, the natural talent of the
man, which the critic may be able to
judge, and his power of work, which
last, though we have called it an ele-
ment, is really compound, being made
up of will, nervous energy, physical
health, and circumstances, and which,
therefore, he cannot judge. So that
when a critic says that a picture is
hopeful or not hopeful, he means, or
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