ENPages
1
St. Louis Hotel New Orleans. November 21 1860
J.{T.} K. Wharton Esq. Architect New Orleans
My Dear Sir:
Have received your pamphlet entitled the "Gen. & Mechanical Description of a Design for the University of the South" {illegible}; and I have read it with pleasure and derived instruction from it.
"Your {reeling?} object -- to avoid all useless ornamentation, and to rely for artistice effect chiefly on the general proportions of the com-position, the simplicity and elegance of its component {word struck through} members, and its fitness and applicability to the objects proposed" has, in my mind and judgement, been most
2
successfuly attained.
This should be the {struckthrough: "object"} aim of all artists whether engaged in painting, sculpture, or architecture, and success will attend their labors just in proportion as they maintain that aim purely{?} and unflinchingly. By it the modest proportions of the peasants' log house --- the magnificent ones of the prince's palace -- and the sublime one's of God's chathedrals, are equally pleasing to the eye, and equally acceptable to good taste.
And why is it that the simple and the rational in art is after all the most pleasing, and everlasting -- if it be not
3
that being so, art becomes the loving and dutiful hand-maiden of nature? To be truly artistic you must get as near to nature as possible -- cling to her, and let no barbaric hand force you from her!
Your design for the principal building of the University of the South, affords evidence that you, at least, have not separated art from nature; and I am sure that its "simplicity and elegance" as well as "its fitness and applicability to the objects proposed" will be recog-nized by the Right Reverend and Reverend Prelates, and they, or the laity who have charge of the great institution of learning
