NEW PRINTS.
A pair of fine French prints on a large scale, the one Fete a la Ma- donna de l'Arr, the other Les Muissonneurs—have lately appeared in
the print-shops, where they deservedly attract much attention. They are two of a set of linr pictures of Italian peasants on festival days
in course of engraving from pictures by LEOPOLD RonEnr, one of the most promising painters of the modern French school : the ori- ginals are in the Louvre, whither they were removed from the Luxem- bourg on the death (by suicide) of the young artist. 'rhey represent scenes of a vintage-feast at Naples, and of a harvest-home in the Cam- pagna of Rome. The Roman harvesters are grouped in a wain drawn by bullocks, followed by gleaners, and preceded by reapers dancing to the strains of the bagpiper: the Neapolitan vine-dressers are also
grouped in a bullock-cart, accompanied by women with tambourines and men dancing and singing to the guitar, and waving wands tipped with bouquets of vine and flowers like the thyrsus of old; and alto- gether resembling very much a Bacchanalian procession modernized. These pictures are among the best specimens we have seen of the modern French school, the beauties being more pleasing and the faults less disagreeable than ordinary : for graceful composition, correct
drawing, anti character of costume, they are admirable.; and that theatrical air, which is the distinguishing feature of French art, is less offensive in scenes of parade and display, though peasants are the actors. It is impossible not to feel interested in the subjects, and to ad- mire the skill of the painter ; but you are not carried away by the en- thusiasm of the real scene, nor do yon sympathize with the rustic re- joicing. The reason is, that the persons themselves are not in earnest; each looks conscious that he is playing a part, and has an eye to the effect of his performance on the beholder ; there is no good faith and abandon- ment in their mirth—all is studied and assumed. This is time fatal blemish that spoils the finest French pictures the sentiment is affected and superficial—hollow and heartless. Time style, moreover, is cold and lifeless, and the figures look like models : there is not so much motion in the dancers as there is in the exquisite miniature statues of Lazzaroni, by DURET, from which they might have been drawn. Both these capital defects arise from the same source—a want of that complete sympathy with the subject which ab- sorbs all feeling of self, and makes the painter live in huagination in the scene lie delineates. The engraving is a sort of mezzotint, but without its depth and richness, and with something; of the thin washy manner of aquatint ; but, as in most large plates with a multiplicity of precise forms, the point is freely used. Z. PREVOST is the engraver. These prints have produced quite a sensation in Paris, where they meet with unqualified admiration.
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