ART EXHABITION.

Evening Post, Volume XLVI, Issue 19, 22 July 1893, Page 4

ART EXHABITION .

| The exhibition of the Wellington Art Club, now open at the Academy of Art, cannot fail to prove interesting and instructive, if not altogether satisfying, to all interested in art. By bringing together the work of tho Auckland, Christchureh, Dunedin, and Nelson Club 3, it has afforded us a standard of comparison by whioh to judge tho relative progress of our young votaries of Art. The result is not fluttering to tho local aspirants. It would be unfair to too severely criticise the efforts of so new a society, composed mainly of young amateurs, as tho Wellington Art Club, but nevertheless a word of warning is absolutely necessary. A glance round the gallery will at once show that in Wellington there is fomo danger of drawing becoming a lost art, and of pure colour being a thing unknown. Many Wellington students aro learning to paint before they can draw, and to dabble in colour before they understand its most rudimentary principles. They are beginning at tho wrong end. A large proportion of them are emulating the Whistlerian "impressionist" sohool, striving to produce the effects of that school while palpably ignorant of the technique which made those effects possible. They forget that the true "impressionist" is he who, by dint of the severest technical training, has become so completely master of his methods and materials as to be able to prodnoe with a dash of the broad full brush effects which the smaller worker would require hours if patient labour to imitate, lint tho hours and years of patient labour must precedo that broad dash, for in its effeot must be seen the result of those year 3 of thought and study. Some Wellington artstudents evidently endeavour to produce tho effect without the study. It is like the few hours' graduate of a "vamping board" essaying a sonata of Beethoven, or a masterpiece of Brahms, or a Salvation Army oinger after a week'B wrestling with Salvation hymns, attempting a great aria. So it ia that several of the exhibits in the Wellington section are bilious as to colour, inchoate as to form — creations of a disordered imagination, and a palette foul with the accumulations of many tubes and many years. There are sea pieces whioh might be anything from a volcanic eruption to a chart of tho measles, and landscapes like nothing on the earth or in the waters under the earth. In the matter of drawing, and good clean, clear, and natural colonr, united to breadth of treatment, Wellington, in the bulk, is decidedly behind the bulk of the foreign exhibits, whioh number 70 from Auckland, 43 from Nelson, 79 from Christchuroh, and 40 from Dunedin. Hut, of course, there are honourable exceptions. The Dunedin Art Club's section is immediately to tho left of the entrance, and the sketches are characterised by excellent drawing and good command of colour. Notable among the exhibits is a study of hills, water, and reflection, by O. E. Paoker, in which hills and reflection (the latter especially),are very happily treated. In a surf study by E. J. Home the effect of the wet beach and tiie incoming wave is clever, so also in the case of Mr. O'Kenfe ; and there is a fine sketch of a grey sea by R. K. Smith, the defects of which are a hard sky and distance. Then there is the head of a laughing boy, hnppy both as to expression, drawing, and po»e, signed M. Hartley, and which promises much ability as a portrait - painter. All these are oils A water-colour sketch of a boy seated, is cleverly drawn and posed, bat is unsigned Tho collection also includes some cbarco.il heads, not well drawn, but one of a bearded man is evidently a good portrait. Immediately adjoining the Dunedin collection are a number of water-colours by C. D. Barraud, well drawn and of much merit, covering a variety of themes and subjects. Adjoining them is amass of Wellington contributions. Miss M. Hill is a prolific exhibitor — almost too prolific. \et she is an exceedingly promising and talented young artist, and ono whom it would well repay to proceed to a Parisian atelier, there to continue her studies. Pel most pleasing example is a lifelike tiger's head, firmly drawn and modelled, and excillcnt as to colour. An ambitious elfoit is a portrait of a lady with yellow roses in her dark hair. The colour tone of tho flowers doeß not harmonise, nml the drapery is not well treated, but in tho face there is better work. Her forte is evidently not landscape, Mr Nairn, tho President of the Club, is by no means as carefnl as ho ought t-o be iv bis drawing, and his colour is in some respects faulty. A girl seated |at an easel is an example of both faults, and a classic , woodland sketch, apparently of a nude shepherd tootling a flute to two goats in a fog, might form the subject of endless con1 troversy as to its nature and ocoult significance. There is a sea sketoh, admirable in its effect of life and ' motion, execrable" in its nightmare of blues and greens. The best of Mr. Nairn's 1 pictures is an interior of a smithy, being (irmly and cleverly painted, and tho solidity ' of some of the work in a farm-yard sketch ' makes its muddy colour the more regrettable. R M. Anderson has somo clever sketches, i marred by the prevailing fault of indecisiveness, as though the artist hadn't quite ' settled in his own mind what be was going to paint, and left a fine air of mystery about 1 some of his work. A bright sketch of a little ! girl, by Miss Kichardson, and an '" Old Woman," by J. Parsons, are oases of form ' in a dcnei't of indefiniteness. A. D. Bilay has a clever etching of a male head, bnt n ' red azalea on a flaring blue- green ground is I au atrocity Among theremaining exhibitors 1 in this section are W. F.. Burgess, Dr. Fell, 1 Noel Barraud (very good), Miss Richardson, 1 iliss Holmes, and T. W. L. Hirst (who has : a bold cliff sketch). From the chromatic ■ lunacy of uiuoh of the Wellington section it ' is refreshing to restore the shattered sense 1 of form and colour by passing on to the ' Auckland collection. Horo the work of 1 T. L. Drummond and F. Wright is as much an example of what to emulate as some of ' the pictures we havo just left are of what to ' avoid. In fact, the west wall is a satire on ' the east. Delightful coast studies are these of Messrs. Wright and Drummond, not the ' least noticeable being a. fine wave study by ' Mr. Drummond. Mr. Trcnwith has some good charcoal woik, and Gregory landscapes | in the same medium. A clever series of 1 const and river sketches and New Zealand ■ trees are by E. Bartley, and, like everything 1 el.-:o in the Auckland section, are admirably ' drawn. Christchurch comoß little behind 1 Anckland with its collection of sketches by \V. Moiuios Gibb in both water and oil, 1 Miss Stoddart in water, and the beautiful ' sketches by Thornhill Cooper in the lighter ' medinm. A ro-k and sea piece of H. F. : Gibson is excellent, and J. 51. Madden has ' some good oil sketches. C. Kidson's " head " is also meritorious. The Bishopsdale Club, of Nelson, sends over a remarkably interesting littlo collection for so small a 1 centre, and it shows good work both as to form, colour, and manipulation. Miss Nina ' Jones is the chief exhibitor, and one of her 1 sketches — a water Btudy of a boat and pier — has been purchased by Lady Glasgow. There 1 is a sketch of a nest, and a very pretty im1 pressionist trifle of a girl seated on the sands. F. E. Baynor has a good flower collection, L. Gloußton some very clover sketohes only, and J. Topliss a' rather successful Urge oil 1 study of Mew Zealand bush. There is quite a dainty set of quaint goat studies, the work 1 of J. D. K. Richmond, and Colonel Branfill ; has some sketches showing much artistic 1 ability.