TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8544, 26 July 1893, Page 3

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

CoH&BsrosDKHTS are requested to make their communications short. While always anxious to find space for letters on questions of interest, we do not undertake to publish them unless they are short and to the point. Tne necessity for brevity i> especially great during the session of Parliament.

ART IN NEW ZEALAND.

TO THB EDITOR OF THE PEES 3. Sir, —Your correspondent who wauts to know why oar artists do not give us more pictures of "old Aorangi by moonlight, or with a storm hanging round his brows," need not have signed himself "Not an Artist," as this information is superfluous. I too am " not an artist," but ie is not difficult for mc to discover reasons why our artists do not supply us with pictures of Aorangi by moonlight. Li the first place, let mc supply an analogy. I am an amateur photographer of three or four years' standing, and my pieces are good enough to say——however that's another story. But though I have got on fairly well, I recognise quite clearly that there are some things which are beyond mc, and Aorangi is one of them. Morris or Coxhead if you like, but not yours, &c., just yet. It may be that some at least of our artists are of the same way of thinking. Then I imagine that the question of demand and supply crops up ; likewise that of prices and other matters of a purely { mundane nature. As long as the public ! encourage the amateur production of 24 x 30 canvasses, which are sold at four guineas, yon cannot very well ask professional artists {to turn out Aoranejis by Moonlight in very i large numbers. " Hard climbing and plain < food," plus four guineas for the artiat, so that " we could enjoy depicted on canvass ' Aorangi by Moonlight. , " Just so. Unlike your correspondent I am not familiar with the interior of all the studios, but I know of one man engaged in teaching who never spends the holidays in town. The Southern Lakes, the Sounds, Kaikoura, Otira Gorge, the North Island, have all been laid under contribution, and long after his return J find him working away from his sketches, turning out if not pictures of Aorangi by Moonlight, at least reproductions of scenes of possibly equal beauty. What becomes of them? They are com--1 missions executed at the request of Australian and English tourists, who are glad enough to get them. But not at four guineas.

For a long time our artists were continually being blamed forgiving us " those everlasting Sounds," and were exhorted to try something else. They did so, and are now invited by your correspondent to let us have more of what he aptly terms "the everlasting hills." Howbeib if he wilL procure such a picture of Aorangi by moonlight as our best artist ie capable of producing, and will place it in Mr Fisher's shop alongside of one of Mr Sprott'epictures of "Cave Rock with a lady or a donkey in the foreground," I know which will remain there the longest. In fact, sir, it is not a question of artiste, but of the purchasing public. If the public want Aorangi, whether by moonlight or sunlight, from any point of the compass, looking up or looking down, water, oils, or black and white, they can have it. But at present they don't, at anything over four guineas. Mountains just now are flat, donkeys firm, and children in active demand in the local market. Knowing all which " Not an Artist " expects artists to risk their life and live on woodends that he may enjoy " AoraDgi by moonlight, ,, &c, from the recesses of an arm I chair.—l am, &c. Not ak Art Cbitic.