Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), November 8, 1845, vol. 2, no. 18, p. ???, col. ?

[page 276, column 1, continued:]

The Fine Arts.

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Under this head we have very little to observe. Titian's Venus — concerning which we had some remarks in a previous number — is again being exhibited in Broadway. Its authenticity, we believe, is sufficiently well established — but we cannot force ourselves into any very enthusiastic admiration of the work. As a composition it is full of defects. Its color alone redeems it.

We refer our readers to Mr. Lester's new book, “The Artist, The Merchant, and The Statesman,” for a great many interesting details respecting Powers, the Sculptor.

At the rooms of the Art Union there are two very exquisite [column 2:] landscapes by Shaw — an artist whose merits (all of the loftiest order) will perhaps never be appreciated by his countrymen, until Death has mellowed down some of the personal ill-will with which his brother artists regard him. His mannerisms (sufficiently obvious) affect only the aggregate of his pictures. Individually, nothing can surpass some of his best works — “The Indian's First sight of a Ship,” for example.

BUST OF MR. CALHOUN. — Mr. Clark Mills, a native artist, whose busts in plaster, actually moulded on the human head and face, have excited such general admiration, by their truth to life, has recently, as we predicted on a former occasion, made a successful attempt in a higher branch of art. From a block of native white free-stone, procured near Columbia in this Slate, he has sculptnred, with hammer and chisel, a stone bust of the great Southern Statesman, (his first attempt in this line,) in a manner that speaks well for the skill and taste of the artist. We propose that, when completed and approved, the City Council of Charleston should make public property of this likeness of our great native state-man, hewn, by a native artist, cut of a block of native stone. — Charleston Cour.