VARNISHING TRICKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 126, 31 May 1939, Page 10

VARNISHING TRICKS.

Varnishing day—the fir«t occasion when artists whose work lum lvcen ac+eptrd for the Royal Academy Kxhiliition arc able to see their pictures "in situ" —passed off quietly last month, which would seem to suggest that artists are now tamer than tliev used to he. It is r<till quite usual for them to touch up their works, hut this custom on some occasions in the past was carried to ' extremes. A renturv ago an artist named (ieddes found a delicately coloured picture killed by the strong tints of Turner's "Fighting Tenieraire," which ha<l been placed next to it. He thereupon painted a red car|>et into his portrait. Turner retorted hv repainting his sky that vivid orange and scarlet which can Ih> admired to-day iu the Tate Kallery. Turner's taste for flaming colnnrs made him somewhat unpopular with his brother artists. Wilkie Collins deserilied how after the varnishingday luncheons and- having consumed an excess of hrown sherry, he used to balance precariously at the top of a ladder, "a shabby Bacchus, nodding like a mandarin at his picture'' and evolving unexpected dreams of colour which made everything within reach look hopelessly drab. Landseer once stuck a paper dog on one of Turner's pictures. Turner varnished it into the scheme, improved it with a few deft touches of liis brush, and said nothing to an vone.