ART CRITICISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5634, 6 December 1879, Page 6

ART CRITICISM.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, —I ended my letter on Art Criticism the other day without saying all I had to say. I ttust your readers do not liko Ioiil; letters. Perhaps you will be kind mougli to allow me to continue the subject. The painter must be no mere imitator, even of naturo, for with all his efforts, how far, far short must ho fall of tho utterly inimitable original. Attempt? to give an exact imitation of natural sounds in music, or natural forms in painting, must be alike abortive. The most finished portrait of externa! form i", if it go no deeper, all but worthies*, the shape of the leaf, the sub-division of the branch, the asperities of the bark, may be all there, as far as paint and pencil can convey them, but naturo is not with them; the material body, lifeless, soulless, may be present, but the spirit which animated it is away, and he who has no higher conception of art, must fail, miserably fail, in touching one deep feeling within as, in awakening one sympathy of the heart for his cold paint and canvas. With regard to young students,

with tbe exception of a few great geniuses, most persons must expect to go through a long course of labour in learning the grammar of att, and when they hare learnt that, it will be setn whether they have any genius or imagination, or whether they are to be m«rely topographical painters. The subject is one on which painters differ in theory as in practice. The following extract is very much to the purpose. "How far is it desirable that the artist should endeavour to paint what he sees ? Is it his main object to c ipy or to invent ? Hkving used his discretion in selecting an external subject, i* it hia duty to be faithful, or declining functions like those of a photographer, be may imitate a musician, by indulging freely in variations, which are perhaps but obscurely grounded on his theme. The answer to such questions should vary according to the capacity of the artist. In art, as in literature, almost literal reproduction, though not the highest kind of work, is the work to which some men of admitted ability are beat fitted. The ean:e yreat world of thought finds room for such writers as B>swell, Busch, and others, and for the genius of Shakespeare and Milton. An artist does not fail who, having taken the just measure of his own powers, employs them to produce the effects for which they are best fitted." I know what sketching and studying from nature ought to be, for I atone time wa3 constantly in the habit of seeing the studies of Hunt, C jllios, Linnell, Mulready, and others ; I am well aequaiuted with Turner's early drawings, and also with those of Girtin, who used to draw in the fields with Turner, when they were glad to get 53 a piece for tbeir studies. Girtin died young. I think he was a more powerful artist than Turner. Turner, except when quite young, never slavishly copied nature. Turner at 27 years old had emancipated himself from the control of fact; he changed the character of a river bed, transformed a castle of varied and individual outline into a clumsy and comparatively shapeless mass, substituted an imaginary or at least unseen mountain for Ben Cruachan (I have been on the top of this mountain and have sketched Kilchurn), and drew upon pure invention for his remote distances. I have seen a great number of pictures by Sir J. Keynolds, but 1 never saw a moonlight of his, and never heard of his oue. The same may be said of Lawrence. Turner sometimes paiuted in this way, that is, wrong shadows, in bis old age. Turner's later pictures show symptoms of decaying power. He was eccent ic iu hia tliadows, bis colouring outraged nature, and it has be?n said that " It would really se in that ho resented the burden laid on him in his early years of drawing, of drawing buildings carefully and tinting them delicately, tie had no scruple about making Heidelberg Castle white, or the essential features of the chateau of Ambnise. He altered forms without improving them, and wa3 much too indifferent.to the perspective of which he was a professor. Turner never was a patient student of nature. As soon as he became rich enough ha begau to improve nature. But it may be said Turner, whatever liberties ho took with the objects which he professed to draw, made beautiful pictures. He never undertook to draw castle or tower with the fidelity which we expe.t iu a portrait. Ho was at liberty to paint as be pleased, though, perhaps, not wholly free to give the names of actual peaces t > the creations of his imagination." I have written on this subject for the purpose of explaining that the end of art teaching should not be to make the student a mere topographical painter. It would asem that every painter has his owo ideas abjut what is like nature. I have seen as many as half-a-dozen artists from different nations, some of them from the first schools of art in Europe, a'l sketching the same subject. Most of them were endcavouriog to make a faithful copy of nature, but they all sppoared to uic to be very uulike her, and all the studies were unlike each other. Amongst modern artists I have never seen anytliiug equal to the sketches made out of doors by Hunt, Collins, and Liu'iell. Hunt will never be equalled, but he never made his studies into pictures. The other two painters founded their largj pictures on their studies from nature. I was present whilst many of these pictures were being paiuted. The sketches were always to a certain extent infeiior to the large picture, and the artists the:uselvcs were aware of this. Turner's early studies were very beautiful and highly finished. Ho always appeared ta be under the iutluence of some artist. Sometimes it was Wilson. I have Eeen a picture of his with rather large figures, after the mauner of Titian. He imitated iiembrant and the Dutch sea painters. Turner's be3t period was from ISO 2 to IS3O, when he tried to rival Claude. After this hiß huer pictures show that his dreams of pris-jatic colours were indulged in. He got more and more eccentric, until at last even Mr. Ruskin said he went too far. Some years ago the French were behiud the English in their landscape painting. The French now aim at high art in their landscapes, while the English are content to be mere copiers of nature. They go to .Nature, but bring little to her. To select a subject with mo e or less taste for the picturesque, to exactly copy w hut the eye sees, or to represent the same under certain modification of the materials, and with certain tiicks of handling, effect, or colour, seem to be the aims to which English artist 3 limit themselves. My letter is already too long, and I must, therefore, refrain from saying anything about the causes which have brought high art iuto such au unsatisfactory state in England.—l am, &c., IS.X.