ART IN WELLINGTON. GALLERY PICTURES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 47, 25 February 1908, Page 2

ART IN WELLINGTON. GALLERY PICTURES.

A CBITICISM. (Contributed.) The Academy of Arts in Wellington bought recently fourteen pictures and fiixtccn illustrations for £<100,- and gut very fair -value as prices go. Picliue prices arc often fkutious, with Icfs relation to the art of the artist than to the ait of tho picture-dealer. Most galleries buy vogue, or puffery, or the cant oi 1 the market-place, or the fnundly officer, of Brown doing Jones a good tuin by tiwdiog him off to the gullible colonies. Occasionally they get a decent picture chepp; but the odds are heavily against them. The Wellington Gallery has done as well as most. It has acquired at a not inordinate expense an interesting little general collection : which, if it contains nothing first-rate, lias several tolerable examples of the second-rate, a good deal that passes muster, and not much that is positively bad. The new pictures certainly add to the interest: and if the £400 had been spent on one picture it is by no means certain that tho artistic accretion would have been more signal. The selection committee seems lo have made a little money go far enough, considering everything. But in the right direction ? Naturally the choice was. matter ol criticism at the Academy's annual meeting. It was complained that the new pictures are not ''gallery pictures." This raises the old question as to what is the kind of picture thao suits a public gallery. And upon that comes the second question. What is it that the public gallery aini3 to do ? Is it to bo for students, or are students to be considered? Is it to be for artists ? Is it to be an exhibition designed to catch the public eye and meet the public taste? Or is it to combine art with general interest T Perhaps one may find the best answer nugpested by the last question. If tlieio is no art, ther thero ip no reason to support tiio gallery, to clamour for subsidies and donations, and to point out what a high and noblo work the gallery has done, is doing or is about io do. [f there is no interest save technical interest, the gallery ceases to be a public gallery, for the public simply will not go there. And again there is no reason to give it public honour in the conventional way. Evidently tho public art gallery must compromise, endeavouring to make the best of both worlds — that of the public and that of art. And, as tho lady said, all compromises are unsatisfactory. Nevertheless they are tho rule of life. In politics and restaurants the roast beef is boiled continually. When anybody cleaves fast to a principle, like Lionel Terry, and has the courag* to choot an elderly Chinaman— carefully selected on thg ground of general inutility — in order to prove the entiraty of his convictions, wo shut him up in an asylum and continue buying fruit and vegetables *rom tho same old John. A public art pallerj, conforming to rule, might ask itself before it buys : Is this a work of distinct artistic merit? If the answer is No, there should bs no purchase. If the answer is Yes, it might ask itself further : Is this a work of distinct general interest? if tlm answer is again Ve a , there might be a third question : Is the work worth the money? And a third iiißrmatjve answer should meai. purchase, if tho gallery has got the money. Tested by these questions, there is not one of the now Wellington pictures that should ha\'cvb9c>n bought. Some of theirf, like 11.. Jj., N orris's watcr-eolour, come, very near the purchase mark. Others are clearly far. away fiom it. And the mark is quito attainable-— has been attained. The large Worsley landscape, and Fred Half's "Result of High Livin.g,"\aro exemplary works of distinct artistic merit and distinct general interest. With vaiietv of subjects and treatment, a gallery filled with such pictures would bo a creditable public art gallory. Students would find in it ample pabulum; artists could not despise h; and Ihe public would visit it. it is all very well to cry cdurato tho public, but "the public is a shy bird, not lo bs caught by aspiring people who rhase it with a pinch of uosthetic salt. Befoie it can bo educated it must bo interested, lilco the children ; and there is no usa in filling a galbl-y with clever work that nobody comes to see. Last Saturday afternoon, despite new pictures and recent advertisement, only a baker's dozen of the public attended 'the exhibi tion of the Wellington Academy of Arts —and some of those fetrcatrd speedily, evidently thinking they would lie safer m ths street. Doubtless students and dilettanti uiJi appreciate the new pirtures'i-ightly ; a-ul indeed, as has beep said ihey arc ;n-foresting,;n-foresting, nnd somo of them may bo appreciated highly. But students p;kl dilettanti are not "the pubhV that r, public art gallery exists for. When tho mountain would not come lo Mahomet, Mahomet went to the mountain. He had 10, or tbev would ha\c baen strangers yet. There is a public moral in the mountain. Theie is an ar tiFlic moral in Mahomet, who remained Mahomet in spite of his poi'iip. He did not grovel sliainple«ssly before th? mountain. Metaphorically sneaking, he cUd not exhibit "Poor Motherless Bamis "