BRITISH ART

Evening Post, Issue 30, 4 August 1936, Page 9

BRITISH ART

ITS HISTORY TOLD

LOAN COLLECTION

FAMOUS ORIGINALS

Not many New Zealanders have the opportunity of visiting Europe and Seeing there the Galleries which play such an important part in the life of the people. But with'the opening of the new National Gallery in Wellington, the position is changed, for many of the pictures themselves have come to New Zealand, and New Zealanders now have the unique opportunity of being able, with a minimum of effort, to see works of art from the National and Tate. Galleries which will ■ give them material for the study of British painting from the 18th century down to the present day.

Chatting to a "Post" representative about the Empire Art Loan Collection which the National Gallery is so lucky to have hanging on its walls for the next month or so, Mrs. Murray, Fuller remarked that constant visits to galleries, museums, and art centres were necessary to help in an appreciation of painting, otherwise we remained deficient on observation and equipment. It was only through being in constant contact and soaking in the feeling of pictures that one received true _ knowledge and appreciation. •Nothing could replace the study of originals. In older times much scrutiny and care was givan to the study of original works, drawings had to be made to show history; now, however, Photographs gave quick glances and did not allow of close study. One wl- tO. bS extreme]y ireful when g't + reproductions; they aided memory, but were a comparative study

"And so it is an important event" continued Mrs. Murray Fuller, "when complete exhibitions are brought to our country for our own study. The National Gallery in London is counted as one of the three greatest galleries in the world. In it are housed many of the best-known pictures in the world all m a very good state of preservation and air well presented. It has within its walls a complete hfstory of-British painting. In the Tate Gallery nowcalled the National, Millbank, one finds English art/from the beginning of the eighteenth century with academic art of the nineteenth century, and fine modem foreign art. There are deficiencies on the historical side; British art of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth \ centuries is not completely represented. The National Portrait Gallery fills in the gaps of the Tate Gallery. Here are represented faces of people who have played a part in national history. It is the only gallery of its kind in Great Britain.

"In our. own National Gallery, the Portrait Gallery will no doubt follow on the lines of the National Portrait Gallery of -London. It is from the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery that most of the pictures in the Empire loan exhibition have come. It may help those who will be visiting the National Gallery to have some littleknowledge of the painting which is being exhibited there in the British exhibitions: ■■•■■'

. "Although English painting does not emerge as an independent school until the eighteenth century, yet at all periods we come across traces of interesting and individual work. England imported her first important painter in 1526—Holbein. Van Dyck came at the invitation of Charles the First, in 1632, following him, Sir Peter Lely, who arrived in London in 1641.'

BIRTH OF INDEPENDENCE,

"English painting did not assert its independence until the time of Hogarth, 1696-1764. Then we arrive at that great period of the eighteenth-cen-tury painters, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Raeburn, Lawrence, and Hoppner. Just as the eighteenth-cen-tury school of portraiture is headed by three great men, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney, so in the beginning of the nineteenth century we find the second great phase of English painting, headed by Richard Wilson, then Crome,' Constable, and Turner. In the present exhibition we can see for ourselves works from all these great men, whether portrait painters or landscape painters.

• "British art has remained as native as cricket and fox hunting, and why should it be otherwise? Jn all countries it has been the importing of foreign ideas which has helped in the decadence of national art.

''Sir Joshua Reynolds was born in 3723. He was the first president of the Royal Academy when it was formed in 1768. His discourses to its students are the most vital and stimulating volume of art criticism we possess. We all know, if only through reproduction, his work entitled 'Heads of Angels,' with its fanciful sweetness. He has given to the world a great record of the fairest children and the most famous men and women of his age. In the canvas 'Mrs. Hartley and Child' we have a really fine example of his work' to see and study. '.'■,.

GAINSBOROUGH'S PICTURES

"Thomas Gainsborough, the great rival of Reynolds, was largely selftaught. As a boy living in Suffolk he was imbued with the beauty of the English landscape. He attained a lightness of touch and luminosity of colour which are in great contrast with the solid tones of his contemporaries. He moved to Bath in 1759 and speedily acquired a fashionable and. extensive practice as a portrait painter. But it is as an English landscape painter that Gainsborough will live and always be known. He was a poet born painter. His vision became expressible only when it had been wanned by poetic emotion. But his portraits were admirably painted, his poses are still astonishingly natural. , He is truly a Ureat 'modem.'

"Sir Thomas Lawrence was not inferior to the great masters of the eighteenth century, but he was less serious, his accomplishment more artificial. There was an extraordinary glitter about some of the later work of Lawrence. He is very well known by that sparkling oil 'Pinkie,' which is housed in the Huntingdon Art Gallery, California. He is represented in this exhibition by 'Mrs. Francis Robertson.' ■ :

"Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish painter of great quality. His workmanlike handling has- had a considerable influence on modern portraiture. It is in Edinburgh that one sees a very complete collection of this famous artists work, and it is from that city the portrait of 'Mrs. Campbell, of Balieemore,' is loaned to New Zealand. A commanding portrait loaned by Mrs. H. D. Crawford, of Wellington, hangs in the gallery which houses the Empire loan collection. This is a truly dignified and magnificent example of Eaeburn's art. It holds its own with \any of the important portraits from London.

"John Hoppner was not such a good painter as many of his contemporaries, although he rarely fail's to secure a certain charm of aspect. His painting of a child 'Miss Louisa Van Diest' will please many visitors, although it has not the great qualities which- Reynolds has given in the painting of the babe in the picture 'Mrs. Hartley and Child.' "While portraiture was declining

after the great period when so many men had reached such great heights British landscape was reaching its full stature. Hichard Wilson, when an able portrait painter, visited Italy. From thenj on he took up the painting of landscape. Reviving the tradition of Claude and Salvator, he created a classical style which was to culminate a century later in the work of Turner. Wilson was the first to bring into English art spacious serenity of atmosphere which, with his fine taste in colour and his masterful brushwork, made him a powerful influence upon the next generation of landscape painters.

i "John Crome, the founder of the Norwich School, marks another advance. To a sense of atmospheric tone as fine as Wilson's and an enthusiasm for the grander .aspects he adds great fluency of brushwork. Known as 'Old Crome,' to distinguish him from his son, he adds a new glow and glory to English technique; his great rolling downs and still vaster golden clouds which rise beyond them have a spacious majesty which was uncommon in Western art.

TURNER AND CONSTABLE.

"Turner and Constable were contemporaries, --Turner being born one year earlier than Constable. Constable seems less an interpreter of Nature than part of it. He brought to each survey of Nature the precious freshness'of a first time. Here he was the true precursor of impressionism. Modern landscape in a true sense dates back from the exhibition of his 'Hay Wain' in the Salon o£ 1824. That was directly responsible for the Barbizon School in France and the great naturalistic period which was to follow. His sketches which are on exhibition in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, are so fresh and modern in treatment and outlook that they could quite easily have been painted today. In these swift notes we see vitality conveyed in an amazing manner.

"And during this time Turner was painting continuously. He was intoxicated by the play of sunjight, ' rain, mist, and cloud. He worked unceasingly, taking long journeys to the Continent, then a tedious and difficult affair, for travel in those days was not as easy as it is today. He had complete mastery of drawing, and in his later years he enveloped his works in an atmosphere charged with the most vivid notes of gold,and crimson. His output was prolific, and at his death he left a collection of works numbering many thousands to the nation.

"These three great landscape painters are well represented in the collection of British painting now in Wellington, Turner by a large oil, painted in his earlier years, and other smaller' but delightfully fresh canvases; Constable by a fresh and beautiful picture showing well how he changed the style' of painting by his quivering and broken line; Crome by ,orie of his dignified and golden landscapes; and Richard "Wilson, earliest of all, by a classical and romantic landscape."