AUSTRALIA’S SOUL.
“WEIRD, MYSTERIOUS.” •Sir Bertram Mackcnnal, the famous sculptor, now in Now Zenlaml, opened up new vistas of inspiring thought for Australians in .a. speech nt a Sydney luncheon in his honor. Replying lo the toast of his health, he declared that Australia to him was a new land. Yet the thrill he experienced on seeing the white sand of its shores, and lhe infinity of blue in its skies, told him that, he belonged. “To me there is something mysterious and elusive in this land,” he said. “Some soul that I cannot find, and I want to find it. I have never seen it before in any other land. I only feel it here.
“During my stay,” he continued, “I hope to learn what its mystery means. It is a quality that comes from an oi l land. Something sack You are all used to it. When I go out into the open, I realise that this land, one of the oldest in the world, is wearing the same garments as it wore ages and ages ago. No other land does that. “For centuries nothing touched it. I like to think that it was waiting for us—that it was waiting for the one virile race in the world, the English nation. “There is a typo here—a type lean and hard, that must do well. I amgoing to live some time among you, and I hope to know r and feel what this "country really means. It is like some weird, mysterious woman waiting for a lover, and you are the lovers.”
Sir Henry Braddon presided. Tn proposing the health of the guest, he said that, although Sir Bertram Mackennal had been absent 30 years,, his personality was far from unknown here. The work, of his hands had been pleading in Australia for many years. Sir Bertram had the triple distinction of being the first Australian sculptor to go abroad for training, the first Australian sculptor to become a Roval Academician, ami the first to receive the honor of knighthood.
AUCKLAND, March 27 There is nothing in the idea that an artist may be known by his appearance. Some men high in the world of art still cultivate long hair, a Vandyke .beard, and wear the wide-awake hat and billowing neckerchief of Bohemia, but others of no less renown find sych | a panoply foreign to their nature. One of thun is Sir Bertram Mnekennal, K.C., V.0.R.A.. the famous Australianborn sculptor, who reached Auckland by the Ulimaroa from Sydney on a short visit. Sir Bertram can ernim nearly everyone in the Empire as a client, for his portrait of King George is on our coinage, but to the outward view he might be a business man, a doctor, or any one of a dozen other occupations. One could nt call him an ordinary citizen. Something in his lively blue eye, at once shy and humorous, sets him apart from other men. Though bis native laud until lately had not seen him for inany years Sir Bertram is still an Australian. His thin, clean shaved face, long straight nose, and care-free air bespeak his origin. It is hard to believe that he is 63 years of
age, and a rapid guess would probably place him at -15 or 50 at the most. Sir Bertram has come here on business, as ho puts it. The Auckland Racing Club, which is thinking of erecting a statue of its prosiilent, Sir Edwin Mitchelson, in the gardens nt Ellerslie, has asked him to come ami advise it, and it he will accept the commission so much th e bet I or. _______
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Grey River Argus, 30 March 1926, Page 8
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606AUSTRALIA’S SOUL. Grey River Argus, 30 March 1926, Page 8
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