A Century of New Zealand Art

Evening Star, Issue 23503, 17 February 1940, Page 18 (Supplement)

A Century of New Zealand Art

MEN OF TALENT LAY FOUNDATION OF FUTURE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

By A. H, M'Liniock

In any young country there is always the temptation to place undue emphasis on material rather than on cultural values. The stern struggle for existence in a new land and the strain of pioneering are scarcely conducive to an emergence of the arts. Society requires a certain measure of stability before its culture can develop. In the case of New Zealand, the early period of colonisation had no sooner begun than the feverish gold rushes in the south and the distressing Maori wars in the north provided further disturbing social factors. Still later in the century, the opening up and clearing of large areas of land for settlement, the rapid construction of roads and railways, and the recurrent periods of prosperity and depression produced conditions which necessarily focused public attention on questions of utility rather than culture, let for all that, the period saw the beginnings of a genuine artistic expression which is far from being the least of the century’s many achievements.

FIRST MAORI INSPIRATION. It must not be forgotten that when, the first immigrants arrived in New Zealand the country in its Maori art

possessed a unique Native culture which the impact of European civilisation was ultimately to destroy. To the early artists who visited New Zealand,

the main inspiration sprang from the desire to record something of the character and novelty of Maori life. Parkinson, Hodges, and Webber, the artists who accompanied Cook on his visits to these shores, were quite indifferent to the appeal of the Maori as a peculiar racial type. Their impressions were fleeting and of little value. Of much higher standard was the work of the French artists who reached New Zealand early in the nineteenth century. He Saiuson, who accompanied Dumont d’Urville in the Astrolabe in 1827, was a draughtsman of great ability, and bis lithographs, published in 1 The Voyage of the Astrolabe,’ are very fine. In 1840. on d’Urville’s third visit to New Zealand, his artist was J.e Breton, whose paintings of Otago Harbour and its whaling base are the earliest known. The outstanding artist of this early period, however, was Augustus Earle, who travelled through North Auckland in 1827. Ho was greatly attracted by the striking racial characteristics of the Maori, ami his fine oil painting in the Turnbull Library, Wellington, ‘ The Wounded Chief Hongi at the Bay of Islands,’ expresses the simplicity and dignity of Maori life in a way that few have equalled.

NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S CON TRIBUTION.

It whs thu colonisation of Now Zea land by the Wakefield Company that provided tin: country with a small hand of settlers whose artistic powers were of a high order. These men, of whom the most talented was Charles Ueaphy, were sent out as surveyors and topographical draughtsmen, and it was part of their work to send to London faithful representations of the new settlements. lleaph.v was too good an artist to be content with recording mere unimaginative studios. His water-colour drawings, in particular, are simple and direct, and reveal a skill in composition and often a decorative quality which mark them as being something out of tl;e ordinary. Another artist of the 'forties whoso work became widely known in England was George Evouch Angas. who arrived in Wellington in 1844. He responded to the fascination of Maori life, and in particular spent much time in sketching Maori carvings, while his portraits of the famous chiefs are excellent likenesses. In contrast to Ueaphy, he was primarily an artist whose main interests wore anthropological rather than pictorial. Brees, who came to Wellington in 1842 as chief surveyor to the New Zealand Company, spent three years in New Zealand compiling a book of sketches, most of which possessed chiefly a topographical character. His panoramas of the Wellington districts, as lithographs, became widely known, and did much to attract emigrants from Britain to the new settlement. Among these early settlers who responded to the appeal of the New Zealand Company was John Alexander Gilfillan, who had held the post of drawing and painting master at Anderson College, Glasgow. Ho arrived in' Wellington on Christmas Day, 1841, and within a few months had settled in the Wanganui district. Unfortunately, as

a result of the Maori disturbance there in 1847, his wife and three children were massacred and Gilfillan left the colony for Australia. Gilfillan is known chiefly for his splendid painting of a Maori pa near Wanganui. The original has been lost, but lithogrphs of the subject are still common. He was an excellent draughtsman, and his sketch books in the Hocken Library, Dunedin, contain several splendid studies of Maori life. RICHMOND, GULLY, AND OTHERS. Had these competent artists of the ’forties remained longer in the country or given more time to the development of their art, a greater impulse to the cultural growth of the young colony might have been given. But Angas, Brees, and Gilfillan soon drifted off and Heaphy became more engrossed in exploring and surveying than in painting. Spasmodic and often surprisingly good attempts to draw and sketch the configuration of the little-known interior were made from time to time by men like John Buchanan, whose drawings of the Otago lakes are often exquisite in colour and arrangement. But it was not until the clays of J. C. Richmond and John Gully that New Zealand possessed two men who were prepared to devote their talents to the furtherance of national art. Both those men arrived in New Zealand early in the ’fifties and they remained life-long friends. Richmond, a man of culture and of sound_ education, had no time to make his painting anything more than a hobby. Yet his keen knowledge of Nature and his wide travel stood him in good stead. His bush studies are particularly pleasing, and his drawings of trees are sometimes excellent. John Gully, who in his day was so extravagantlypraised, carried on the topographical tradition of the earlier artists. There

is little of real inspiration in his large canvasses, though a great deal of technical skill. It was perhaps natural that Gully, with his uncompromising fidelity to Nature, should make so strong an appeal to a generation steeped in Victorian art. His influence on a host of minor New Zealand artists who endeavoured to follow in his footsteps was most' marked, unfortunately with unhappy results, and C. D. Barraud, another hopelessly ovor-rufed artist of this period, has Gully’s worst mannerisms without his skill. But W. S. Hodgkins, whoso oil painting, ‘Southern Alps,’ in the Dunedin Art Gallery is the. finest landscape of this middle period, certainly had moments of inspiration; his work, however, is very uneven, ns is that of N. Chevalier, who arrived in New Zealand about 1865. J. C. Hoyto also deserves mention as being outstanding about this time. While New Zealand painting was definitely wedded to landscape subjects of the Gully tradition, a faint revival in portraiture, especially of the Maori, was brought about by the arrival of the German, Gottfried Lindnuer, who reached the colony in 1873 and set himself out to depict carefully the Maori types which attracted him. Lindauer was a sound draughtsman and a good, though unenterprising, colonist. His records of native life are invaluable, and reveal his understanding of the character and culture of the Maori. VAN DER VELDEN AND NAIRN. Liudauer'e influence was not, for the moment, very marked. The Gully tradition, with its formula of lake, bush, mountain, and snow, appealed to a host of feebler imitators to whom originality in ■ any shape or form savoured of heresy. In tho ’nineties, however, this stagnation ended with the arrival of two men, James Nairn, the Scot, and Van dor Velden, the Dutchman, who between them were destined to exercise a profound influence on a number of young painters of talent. Nairn, who had been a member of the Glasgow Art Club, was closely associated in spirit with the leading Scottish impressionist landscape painters, and his arrival in Wellington stirred art enthusiasts there. Nairn was never in the first flight as an artist, but he possessed a charming personality, and his hatred of shams and poses marked him out as' the apostle of the new painting. “To paint the thing as one sees it,” was his cry, and this became the slogan of tjie Silverstream school of out-of-door painters who followed his teachings in Wellington. Petrus Van dor Velden, who was born at Rotterdam in 1836, is in many respects the outstanding figure in New Zealand art. Steeped in tho traditional Dutch style, of painting, Van dor Velden showed such promise as a young man that he received favourable attention from tho leading artists of the day. Van der Volden's decision to settle in Christchurch made that city the art. centre of New Zealand, and did much to implant there that strong academic tradition in painting which it has never lost. His magnificent landscape, ‘ Otira Gorge,’ which is one of the treasures of the Dunedin Art Gallery. would hold its own in any company. It expresses the very essence and spirit of the rugged New Zealand landscape.

THE LATEST PERIOD, Van dcr Velden’s influence was most marked on a group of! talented pupils who wore fortunate enough to benefit from the teachings of one trained and disciplined in the' Rembrandt

school. Robert Proctor, ■ Cecil and Elizabeth Kelly, "Leonard Booth* Charles Bickerton, 'Raymond M'lntyre, and Sydney Thompson were of this company, and their outstanding success shows how widespread is the influence of a great teacher. In the early days of this century New Zealand possessed many young artists of great promise, some of whom, like David Low, Frances Hodgkins, Heber Thompson, Eleanor Hughes, and Owen Merton, achieved recognition abroad. Among other New Zealand artists of this period stands out the name of Alfred Walsh, surely one of the finest water colourists the Dominion has produced. At the same time the Wright brothers and Goldie, of Auckland, turned for inspiration to the Maori and continued with great success the Lindauer tradition.

The .war took its toll of young men of promise in art as in other spheres. As a compensation the art of the country gained tremendously in the impact of new ideas from overseas. The isolation of the Dominion was to a great! extent broken down, and the appointment of art specialists of high ability; from overseas to the leading positions in our training colleges, schools of art* and other educational centres has been most beneficial. At the present time, and mainly beacuse of the Dominion possesses a talented band of painters and sculptors whose work is of a very high quality. There are, moreover, many excellent art galleries throughout the country which are fast becoming important factors in community life. All this, however, promises little unless-there is an intelligent and sympathetic response from the general public to use the art talent of the Dominion as freely as possible.' If this is done, and the public becomes the true patron of the arts' there is no reason to doubt that, in New Zealand’s second century, its native art will become its national pride.