THE WAR AND ART

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 146, 22 June 1915, Page 8

THE WAR AND ART

ROYAL ACADEMY PICTURES NEW ZEALAND ARTISTS. (FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 2nd May. It is scarcely necessary to say that the war, which has now been in progress for nearly nine months, has had a very appreciable influence on the artistic life of the country. In the Royal Academy, which opens to tho public on Monday, there is quitfe a revolution. Instead of tho dreary gallery of opulent trade captains we find a very generous display of war pictures, generally of the merely descriptive kind, but aIBO in Borne cases allegorical and imaginative. That business is not altogether unmingled with art is evident from the prolific crop of pictures 'which one or two of the better-known naval and military painters have produced. One wonders, for instance, how on earth Mr. W. L. Wyllie has found time to paint so much of the war lifo of Portsmouth, besides seeing tho Lion towed crippled back to her haven at tho Forth and going up in an aeroplane near Ypres for the groundwork of his " Ypres to the Sea.' The critic will probably say that quality has suffered to some extent for quantity, but tho aerial picture is quite a new thing. There is only one picture of trench life; but there are several of artillery in action, guns at tho gallop, streetfighting, and. bo forth. The picture wlnali is given place of, hc-ndui 1 is Herbert A. Olivier's "Where Belgium Greeted Britain." It shows the King stepm'ng out of his motor on a dreary Belgian ipave and being received by King Albert. The portraits are good enough, but the whole thing is wooden --a rush product, Uke so many others. But even artists who have not sought to put the war on canvas have been stirred to some originality of thought by the turmoil of events ; and as a result there is a very creditable variety of conception in this year's Academy. Of New Zealand exhibitors there are a handful. Mr. Oswald Birley has three portraits, of which one (Major-General Maxse) is good. Mr. G. E. Butler sends a summer scene, "The Golden Hour." Mr. Francis Barraud haß a portrait of the Dunedin pianist, Mr. Arthur Alexander. Miss Grace Joel's " Divine Love" is quite up to her standard. Mr. A. J. Munnings has three animated country scenes, of which the start at a country race meeting is very good. The presentation portrait of Sir James Mills, by Mr. W. • Llewellyn, is prominently hung amongst the oils.

The Oamaru Mail reports the death, at tho age of 73 years, of Mr. James Gemmell, of Incholme, one of the bestknown farmers in North Otago. Mr. Gemmell had been for about half a century in the district, and had played an important role as a breeder of stock. For many years he owned one of tho finest Ayrshire herds in New Zealand, not hesitating to import the best animals, despite their price. He had always been interested in draught hc^es, and latterly had devoted his energies to Border Leicester sheep. Mr. Gemmell was a very old member of the North Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Association, and was interested as an extensive exhibitor and as a member of tho committee. The toll that war is > taking of our bravest and best is strikingly shown in the death of Captain E. F. R. Bage (says the Melbourne Argue). Here was a young man who before the war had en» shrined his name in the book of Australian heroes. During tho two and a» quarter years he was away with the Mawson Antarctic Expedition he amply proved the fine temper of his courage and resolution. He was one of the choicest spirits of that gallant band, and at 25 years of age had crowded a world of romantic achievement into his life. Yet immediately war broke out he volunteered for service, and it was as" second in command of the 3rd Field Company Engineers that he fell. Such a record denotes a man doubly a hero. Such a man simply could not keep out of the fighting when great things were to be done. Mr. L. G. Mackay, secretary of the Wellington Investment, Trustee, and Agency Co., who has been on an ex« tended visit to Great Britain, returned to Wellington by the Remuera yesterday. The mails which left Wellington on the 6th May, and connected with, the Naples despatch per R.M.S. Omrah, arrived in Londoh on the 20th inst. " One thing is evident in all this awful crash : men still are brave j never before, perhaps, have they fought against such great odds," cays a writer in the Atlantic". " The splendour of their courage dims our eyes. Shall the fighters in tho world of spirit, 'fighters in the noblest fight,' be less brave in defending in the face of odds, perhaps never so great before, these inner truths, deeper than dogma, deeper than theology, deeper than life itself, the immemorial heritage of the race— longing unutterable for | righteousness, for faith in the spiritual, for enlarging and unending life?" The London. Times prints an article by an unnamed Belgian, who catalogued ihe famous library in the Trappist monastery at Bouillon shortly before the war, and who says that the library has been entirely looted, its rarest treasures having been taken to Germany. The library included more than 20,000 volumes, among them precious Bibles, Testaments, original editions, standard authors, theologies, and "histories. In Britain an appeal has been .made for mouth organs for the front, and incidentally it is recalled that the mouth organ dates back almost to prehistoric, times. The instrument (writes an exchange) is the descendant of the old Greek pan-pipes, which remained popular with rustic Europe throughout the Middle Ages, and were revived at tho beginning of the 19th century. Tho mouth organ thus has an illustrious parentage, for Pan made his first pipes out of the nymph Syrinx, who had by her own prayer been changed ihto a redd to escape his unwelcome attentions. The general meeting of memborß of the Wellington Central Chamber of Commerce, called for tomorrow afternoon, has been postponed till Wednesday, 30tti inst. At 1 n.in. to-morrow, Messrs. C. \V\ Price and Co. will soil contents of seven furnished rooms at No. 321, Upper Willisstreet. Miss Ruby M'DonalH is organising & oOhcert for wounded soldiers. The concert will be bold in tho Opera Housa on Friday evening. On Wednesday, 30th Juno, at 2.30 o'clock, Mr, S. George Nathan will sell by auction, as instructed by Dr. Tolhursl, a freehold city property, situated opposite tho Courtonay-place tram terminus. To-morrow, at 1 o'clock, Mossrs. E. Johnston and Co. will hold ah aUctioi salo of fumed oak and kauri furniture and at 1.30 two motor-oars. The Mayor has received advice fronr the Bank of Australasia, and the Union Bank that each will donate a- sum of £200 for the National Fund for wounded soldiers, sailors, and their dependents a* soon as trustees have bren appointed to administer the fund.