were water-colors, and his first attempt with the oils was an illustration of Shelley's "Alastor." Though principally self-instructed, Mr. Moran twice visited Europe, where he paid particular attention to the works of Turner. He accompanied the Yellowstone Park Exploring Expedition of 1871, and also that of 1873, making many sketches. The results of his work at this time are to be seen in his two great paintings, The Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone and The Chasm of the Col

orado. Both of these were purchased by the Government (the price being $10,000 each) and may now be seen in the Capitol at Washington. The first-named may fairly be called the finest landscape painted in this country, with the single exception of Church's Niagara. The great question raised by such artists as Rossetti and Whistler, whether Nature should be subordinated to Art or Art to Nature, Mr. Moran clearly answers in favor of Nature; but when his subject is so superbly imposing as that chosen in these pictures, it is impossible to find fault with him for his realistic style.

were God's first Temples. It will be seen that he is remarkably versatile in choice of subjects as well as an artist of great technical skill.

Mr. G. P. A. Healy (born in Boston, 1808) is one of the oldest and best of American painters of the French school. Though he has resided at Paris almost continuously for forty years or more, making occasional visits to this country, he has painted portraits of an astonishingly large number of our

Still it is probable that his chief fault is want of originality, of inventive genius. The Mountain of the Holy Cross (exhibited at the Centennial of 1876) is his best work, next to the two already mentioned, and in technique is even an advance on those. A full-page engraving of it will be found elsewhere in this book. Others of his more noted pictures are The Cliffs of Green River: The Haunt of the Kennebeck, A Dream of the Orient, the Children of the Mountain, The Ripening of the Leaf, and The Groves

famous men, including several Presidents and ex-Presidents of the United States Some of these pictures are to be seen in the Capitol, WashingHis only pure

ton.

ly historical pieces that we recall are: Franklin urging the Claims of the Amer

ican Colonies before Louis XVI, and Webster's Reply to Hayne (in Faneuil Hall, Boston). The latter includes over a hundred and thirty separate portraits. A few of the celebrated people whose portraits he has painted are Clay, Webster, W. H. Seward, Calhoun, Guyot, the Hon. E. B. Washburne, Lord Lyons, Thiers, and General Grant. Robert W. Weir

(born at New Rochelle, N. Y., 1803) excelled in small genre pictures. For a time he had a studio in the city of New York, but spent much time in study at Rome and Florence. In 1832 he was chosen professor of drawing in the West Point Academy. He was made a member of the National Academy as early as 1829. Of his earlier pictures the Landing of Hendrik Hudson, Taking the Veil, and View on the Hudson, are the best. Among his later works are Indian Falls, Dante and

Virgil Crossing the Styx, Christ in the Garden, Titian in his Study, and Columbus before the

Council of Salamanca. He has also painted many excel

lent portraits. His

son, John F.

Weir, N.A.,

is a genre and ideal painter of

considerable talent, and is Director of the

Yale School of Fine Arts. His best known work is the West Point Foundry. Other of his pict

ures are Sunset at West Point, The Culprit Fay, The Confessional, Tapping the Forge, and An Artist's Studio. Another son of Professor Robert

Weir, Mr. J.

A. Weir, has painted some very delicate pictures of peasant life, and has a studio in New York, where he devotes himself chiefly to portrait painting.

William

H. Beard, N. A., A., is above all things a humorist. His animal pictures all tell the most ludicrous and sometimes satirical

stories, and in almost

case

every there is present a suggestion

of the human in the faces of his animals which is irresistibly comical.

Mr. Beard was born in Painesville, Ohio, in 1821, and is the younger brother of James H. Beard, N.A., who is also an animal painter of considerable ability and a portrait painter of national reputation. The subject of our sketch be

gan his career as a traveling portrait painter. His early study was in New York, in the studio of his brother James. In 1850 he settled in Buffalo, and

gained a local reputation. Here he painted a little picture of a Cat and Kittens, which was hung on the line in the National Academy. After a short residence in Italy, Mr. Beard opened a studio in New York City, and, with the exception of short absences in Europe and the West, has remained there since that time. His brush is very prolific, and we can only mention the names of a small part of his paintings. Among the best

are Raining Cats and Dogs (1867); The Dance of Silenus, which represents a bear and goats engaged in a tipsy dance; Bears in a Melon Patch; Bears on a Bender; Bulls and Bears, a clever hit at our Wall Street brokers; "Whoo!" a circle of rabbits staring at an owl of intense solemnity; Bar-room Politicians, and Lo, the Poor Indian. None of his pictures has been more popular than the richly humorous painting Making Game of the Hunter, which we reproduce. Here the exuberant fancy of the artist fairly runs riot in depicting the absurdities of the imaginary scene, where the tables are turned with

Frederick E. Church (born at Hartford, Conn., 1826) is undoubtedly at the head of that American school of landscape painters which, while far from faultless in technical points, seems deeply imbued with a fine sympathy for nature, and a love for its grander and nobler aspects. He was a pupil of Cole, and became a member of the National Academy in 1849. He has made trips at different

a vengeance. It has been declared that a close study of the faces of Mr. Beard's bears will always result in finding a certain facetious resemblance to one's own personal acquaintances. Some critics have refused to accept Mr. Beard as an artist of the first rank on account of his choice of subjects. His coloring, though simple and unstudied, is effective, and his study of nature is as close and accurate as that of Landseer, though in a less ambitious line.

times to South Amer

ica, Labrador, Jamaica, Palestine and Greece for the purpose of sketching. His most famous work is the Niagara, now owned by the Corcoran Gallery at Washington, for which was paid the sum of $12,500. Photographs and chromos of it are common. This magnificent picture, in which

the natural splendor of the falls is heightened by the effect of a glittering rainbow, has been pronounced the first and only satisfactory attempt at delineating the great natural wonder of the western world. None of Mr. Church's later works will bear comparison with it; and to say that, is in itself praise of the highest. Of

the Icebergs, a critic says "the subject is treated with the utmost subtlety and delicacy, both of form and color, and brings the weird and wondrous iceworld most vividly and impressively before the spectator." Nearly as fine are, Rainy Season in the Tropics; A South American Landscape; Andes of Ecuador; Heart of the Andes (sold for $10,000); Morning in the Tropics, and Chimborazo. Mr. Church has been thought to resemble Turner in some points,

the early part of his career he painted many excellent portraits in Boston, Albany and New York, and later occupied one of the most popular studios in Rome. Of his best portraits we may mention those of President Eliot of Harvard, of Robert Browning, of Charlotte Cushman, of Henry Ward Beecher (painted for Theodore Tilton), and of Governor Marcy. An ideal portrait of Shakespeare has received high praise. Our readers are familiar with photographs of the Farragut's Triumphant Entry into Mobile Bay (for the portrait of which the old

BY EASTMAN JOHNSON.

is one of the most clever of our genre painters. He has a wonderful talent for depicting in a pleasing manner American country life and domestic interiors, and has achieved a quite peculiar distinction by his portrayal of the negro. Mr. Johnson studied for two years at Düsseldorf, where he learned certain realistic principles which have never deserted him. A stay of four years at the Hague resulted in a profound admiration for the Dutch Masters. Here he painted The Card Players, The Wandering Fiddler, and other spirited compositions. After a short stay