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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XV.--FEBRUARY, 1865.--NO. LXXXVIII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.




OUR FIRST GREAT PAINTER, AND HIS WORKS.


On the 8th of July, 1843, Washington Allston died. Twenty-one years have
since gone by; and already his name has a fine flavor of the past added
to its own proper aroma.

In twenty-one years Art has made large advances, but not in the
direction of imagination. In that rare and precious quality the works of
Allston remain preeminent as before.

It is now so long ago as 1827 that the first exhibition of pictures at
the Boston Athenaeum took place; and then and there did Allston first
become known to his American public. Returned from Europe after a long
absence, he had for some years been living a retired, even a recluse
life, was personally known to a few friends, and by name only to the
public. The exhibition of some of his pictures on this occasion made
known his genius to his fellow-citizens; and who, having once felt the
strange charm of that genius, but recalls with joyful interest the happy
hour when he was first brought under its influence? I well remember,
even at this distance in time, the mystic, charmed presence that hung
about the "Jeremiah dict