DELAROCHE's great picture of "Napoleon crossing the Alps," has reached
London, where it is on exhibition. It is described as being wonderfully
exact in copying nature, but as lacking elevation of purpose and the
expression of sentiment. An officer in a French costume, mounted on a
mule, is conducted by a rough peasant through a dangerous pass, whose
traces are scarcely discernible through the deep-lying snow--and his
aid-de-camp is just visible in a ravine of the towering Alps. These
facts, the _Athenaeum_ says, are rendered with a fidelity that has not
omitted the plait of a drapery, the shaggy texture of the four-footed
animal, nor a detail of the harness on his back. The drifting and the
imbedded snow, the pendent icicle which a solitary sun-ray in a
transient moment has made--all are given with the utmost truth. But the
lofty and daring genius that led the humble Lieutenant of Ajaccio to be
the ruler and arbiter of the destinies of the largest part of Europe,
will be sought in vain in the countenance painted by M. Delaroche.