use? For, certainly, they have no beauty. Do the arches need bracing? If they did, science would hardly teach us to depend upon wood as a resistance to the proverbially sleepless disposition of the arch! No; No; these straps of turned wood are merely concessions to the spirit of the time that ornaments even the inside of its tooth-pick, and sets the butcher at carving patterns on the surfaces of its sides of mutton. These straps make the arches look weak and low after thousands of dollars have been spent in making them lofty and strong! It is true that one does often see in Italy arches braced by rods of iron, and these in buildings of the best time; but it is a device most frequently employed in small arcades where the agglomerated thrust of the succession of arches does not find at the angles an adequate resistance, and the iron rods are employed to make up the deficiency. But, however we may come to like this device from its association with beloved places or beautiful pictures, there can be no doubt it is a fault, and one that, while we may excuse it in a miniature work, can have no reasonable excuse for being in a massive work like that of Trinity. A third objection is one that applies to the decoration,—namely, the emphasis given to the ribs of the vaulting and of the domes of the chancel, which are relieved in dark upon the gold ground. The gilding of the chancel-apse is certainly a great addition to the beauty of the church; but this beauty is much diminished by the marking of the ribs, which, besides being somewhat insignificant in size, make the gold look thin and metallic by the way in which they are treated. Gold is so precious in its color, that it bears almost nothing so well as itself in the way of decoration. Its only value as decoration is its color, and its soft glow ought never to suggest that it is metal, least of all should its intrinsic value make any part of its appeal. Of course, there is a certain unfairness in criticising a building that is so unfinished as Trinity, but the things we are speaking of are things that can be mended or modified if ever it shall seem fit to those in authority. We may naturally take it for granted that in the good time coming the last touch of cheapness and provincialism will be removed from a building that has been overheard to call itself a basilica, by the substitution of a mosaic, marble, or tile floor for the present Brussels carpeting. A basilica carpeted with a Brussels carpet is something to make the judicious grieve, and they could prove their judiciousness by giving good reasons for their grieving. There is a legend to the effect that the cohorts of the carpet-dealers descended on the sheep-fold of the Trinity trustees with their bids, and contracts, and sample-books before the church was begun, and that the order for the carpet was filling in the factories before the order of the architecture was determined on. A carpet stretched over a floor, no matter how rich the carpet may be (and this carpet in Trinity is neither rich nor handsome), always suggests a poor floor underneath, else why cover it up? No carpet, however rich, could ever look well stretched over these chancel-steps, which should be of marble and remain uncovered. The spirit of this church being opposed to splendid ritualistic services and to the pomp of the high altar, there is no relief from its present bareness, except by giving to the necessary objects all the richness of which they are capable. The present reading-desk and lecterns and altar-table are of the thinnest; many an unpretending wooden country church has solider. Why not return to the marble mosaic and elaborate ambones of the primitive church and hang the hemicycle of the choir with rich tapestries-a good work for the ladies of the church? The most sensible, as well as the most beautiful floor for such a noble church as this would be of marble, and if carpets were desirable anywhere for warmth or added richness, Eastern rugs are at hand in plenty, and at least the chancel might in part be relieved of its up-country bareness by spacious rugs, such as one sees in the choirs of some of the cathedrals-in Nôtre Dame de Paris, for instance. The decoration proper of Trinity is so incomplete, has been carried so little way, it is not possible to form a reasonable opinion as to what it will be when finished. It seems to have been taken up at the wrong end; the impression is that there is no plan, that these figures form no part of a connected scheme of illustration, such as we find in all the great historic examples. Here is no Sistine epic, no Chigi dome, no "History of the Cross," or "Life of St. Francis," no rich painted poem of the time here as in the Riccardi Palace Chapel. In the spandrils of the arches that surround the transeptsquare we find the figures of David and Moses, Peter and Paul, Isaiah and Jeremiah. High up in the tower and out of sight are the symbols of the evangelists; a few panels contain figures of angels, and on the PART OF PILASTER IN CHANCEL OF ST. THOMAS'S CHURCH, wall of the nave a single picture (Mr. La Farge's "Christ and the Woman at the Well") seems to promise at some distant day a connected series of pictures illustrating some central theme. But there is no such connection as yet, nor is there, it must be confessed, any imaginative treatment of the themes taken in hand. The great figures in the spandrels are certainly disappointing, and one feels that Mr. La Farge is not at home in such sublimities, and does not paint like himself until he reaches a subject such as the one above named. If it shall be objected that the personages symbolized in these gigantic figures are treated here as symbols, and after the fashion agreed upon since an early period, we may demur that no one of the great painters ever did accept the symbols exactly as they were handed down to him, but was always free to put his own thought into his presentation of the subject. Mr. La Farge's "Moses" is simply the old Moses of the middle age; he is muffled up, and holds his table almost exactly as he is figured in the Fountain in Perugia made by Nicola Pisano; but a nineteenth century man ought to give us Moses as known to us of the nineteenth century, especially when he had to create him for a free and unmuffled church like Trinity, where the Moses as he was would have been justly welcome. We want to see, not Moses the magician, not Moses the mysterious dweller upon Sinai, not Moses the priest, but the man of learning who used his learning to free the people; the man of moral insight who lifted a whole nation up from a brutal state to a lofty ideal; the heroic soul who sacrificed himself and all that such a man must have held dear for the enslaved and the ignorant, for tribes that in the nature of things he could not hope wholly to save, and who could not reward him; the great forerunner of Prometheus and Socrates, worthy to be the prototype of Jesus himself. It is impossible at this time to accept for such a glorious character, whose story grows richer and fuller with all discoveries and all research, the muffled and conventional image which Mr. La Farge has painted. Nor do we find the others more satisfactory. They all have a lack of purpose; they are not created, they are accepted, and give us no new thought of the persons they stand for. So much for their significance; but it follows as a matter of course that they cannot be strongly painted nor original in their composition, because these qualities only go with sincerity and definite intention, and to our thinking no one of these figures is born of any clear thinking on the artist's part as to the character of the person he has offered to represent. In the "Woman at the Well," on the other hand, Mr. La Farge is in his own field, and here he has shown a power that belongs to him peculiarly, among all the artists of our time, of investing simple incidents in the Bible story with intense dramatic feeling. If he were to fill up all the panels like this one with such subjects as he is really capable of treating, we should have a collection of pictures such as does not anywhere exist, such as could not have existed before our own time, and that would give an impetus to religious painting such as it sorely needs, and such as no one of us could have hoped to see given to it in this time. In treating the great figures of the transeptsquare, Mr. La Farge was not only out of his just domain, but he worked under the disadvantage of not being able to carry out with his own hands his own ideas. The artists who worked with him, Messrs. Millet and Maynard and Francis Lathrop, had also to work in the dark, carrying out Mr. La Farge's sketches in their own way, to be afterward retouched and mended by him, so that the result could not be satisfactory. Add that the treatment of the background gives the figures too much the look of being cut out of cardboard and laid upon the walls, in only one case, that of the "David," in which Mr. Millet has carried out Mr. La Farge's drawing literally, do we have a sense of unity; the others are all more or less uncertain. The symbols of the evangelists painted on the upper part of the tower walls are also complete in their way, if we could fairly see them and enjoy them. The subjects were distributed by lot, and the eagle fell to Mr. Maynard, the ox to Mr. Millet, the lion to Mr. La Farge, and the angel to Mr. Lathrop. In the task assigned him of decorating the chancel of St. Thomas's Church in New York, Mr. La Farge found himself working under conditions very different from those he met with in Trinity, and far less fortunate. In our opinion there is no church in this city so unhappy, so meaningless in its design as St. Thomas's. It follows no recognized church plan, and its eccentricity seems not to have been necessary to serve any especial need of its service or its congregation. So far as can be made out, it is the fruit of mere whim, or, if it had a reason for being, perhaps that reason was the one the town, in its frivolity, gave,―that it was designed so that every Easter bonnet might see and be seen. Its plan, however, only concerns us at present, because it is so inimical to the arts, which find no hospitality in these cross-lights, these cramped corners, these elbowing angles, and irreconcilable windows. Add that the construction is of the thinnest, most pasteboardy kind, while it simulates the solid and meaning methods of the Gothic, and it will be seen that the artist has had to work under the most disadvantageous condition. The decoration of this chancel is due to the pious wish of Mr. C. H. Housman, a member of the parish, to keep in mind and memory the name of his mother, a lady of excellent virtues, who, albeit unknown in life to those outside the circle in which that life was inclosed, must now be gratefully known to a larger world, who, Sunday after Sunday and all through the holy years, will enjoy the beautiful memorial with which her son has enriched this church. The form of the choir is seven sided and the decoration is confined to five of these sides. The design, which belongs wholly to Mr. La Farge, though the carrying out of the sculptured portion is due to Mr. Augustus St. Gaudens, is a sculptured adoration of the cross by angels, with paintings on each side representing scenes in the life of Christ immediately following the resurrection. Only one of these pictures is finished, and the effect of the whole cannot, of course, be judged until the vacant space is filled. But the picture already painted-representing, on the left, the tomb, with the angel sitting upon it and the sleeping guards at the side, while at the right Mary Magdalene throws herself at the feet of the Savior-has many points of interest and picturesqueness, its chief want being solidity in the painting and an uncomfortable sense of want of healthiness in the general conception. The best figures are those of the angel on the tomb and the Christ; Mary Magdalene suggests too much Mr. La Farge's own powerful "Bishop Hatto in the Rat-tower" to be altogether agreeable or welcome here. The wings of the angel, too, are neither wings nor no wings; but, then, we do wrong to criticise at all a mere unfinished sketch like this. Here are all the elements of a good picture. The composition is clear and sufficient. There is dignity and repose, and the landscape promises to be charming in its suggestion of the early dawn. We hope that in carrying it birds that soar and sing to greet the risen sun. It is true the young sculptor's work suggests the early Italian sculpture, but only as one spring-time suggests another. There is no slavish imitation, nor anything out of date nor out of time. Art can never deny her lineage, and Mr. St. Gaudens' art is a shoot from a stock full of health and vigorous life, and strong enough to engraft a new branch upon with hope of happy fruit. What we especially welcome in this work of his, is the very fact that we have in it a return to a time and to models about which we in America know less than nothing-the art of the early Italian Renaissance with which nothing since the Greeks can compare, and which is peculiarly suited to the feeling of our own day in its mixture of intellectual penetration with deep religious feeling. At present, however, the center of all eyes must be Mr. St. Gaudens' part of this interesting work, the "Adoration of the Cross by Angels." A large cross, which it is intended later to decorate, and thus take away from its somewhat staring character, rises directly above the bishop's chair (for here again we are in a church where ritualism is tabooed), and on either side arranged in four rows are kneeling angels who adore the sacred symbol. A large crown is suspended above this cross, and beneath it is a row of cherubic heads. The whole is inclosed between two rich pilasters, designed and in great part executed by Mr. La Farge himself. The engraving on page 576 reproduces the angels and the cross, but not the pilasters. The upper part of one of these is shown in Mr. Marsh's engraving on page 573. Mr. Cole's engraving of the angels, however, gives a very complete idea of the design, and he has secured with surprising success the details of the whole subject. It is a lovely record of a lovely thing. Mr. St. Gaudens comes for the first time before our public as a sculptor in this work, in which he expresses himself and his own aims, however slight and sketchy may be reckoned the execution of his work. It is not his work in its immediate conception; but the essential part, the whole spirit, sentiment and detail are his and his alone. The charm of Mr. St. Gaudens' work is not easy to express. It is, as near as our words can give tongue to our thinking, its harmonious interweaving of deep childlike religious fervor with a strong buoyant sense of delight in living and loving. Mr. La Farge's angel on the tomb is a sad, worn, patient angel, whose ministry lies about the sick-bed and the chamber of death. Her wings are woven of the vapors that in the moonlight hover like sad wraiths about the grave; her eyes see the hope of the living, but they cannot smile for long looking upon a world of hopes left unfulfilled. She cannot run like Mary and cling to the feet Artists need to remember that the old still fragrant after death with the precious times to which they look back with so much ointment distilled upon them in life, be- longing-the golden age, the good old times cause her place has been so long a watcher-were, unhappily, not very different from by unopened tombs. But Mr. St. Gaudens' angels are full of joy and cheer, and they bow and bend before the symbol that unites heaven with earth, in healthy happiness as One difficulty in the way of the success of such undertakings comes from the ignorance of church committees as to the nature of the artist's work and the condition under which it is produced. The true artist can no more force his work than the farmer can force the spring, or the shipman the tides. Properly speaking, there can be no business relation between artist and business men other than that the artist shall do his work to the best of his ability, and that the business man shall pay for it generously and promptly when it is done, and leave him absolutely free while he is doing it. But it is a fact that in every case where the work has not turned out well it is the committee men-the business men-who are to blame for its failure, not the artist. One of the pleasantest episodes in the history of church decoration in this country is the painting of certain panels of the chapel of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, by Mr. Francis Lathrop. Here, although the artist was not called on for a comprehensive scheme or subject to embrace the whole wall-space, yet so far as his work went he was left free to carry out his own ideas; and was allowed to work in the freedom that comes from sympathy and from a cordial, not a merely business, interest in the undertaking. the hard times they live in. Let the artist, when he is fretted with the bargaining spirit, when his work is scrimped in its fair proportions,—when, in the collision between |