THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1884.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7002, 26 April 1884, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1884.

The growing attention given to the arts by the young antipodal communities has of late been remarked by the London Press, and with something like surprise. And no doubt it is a new feature of colonial progress. Such a public fact would be looked at as a lusus natures not many years back. The Muses and the Graces were regarded as the peculiar property of populations with a respectable amount of antiquity. Only a public with the honours of Tim 9 and the polish "of ages could cultivate and render them practical homage. Such things of the mind stood in.the rank of luxuries, out of reach for fellows busy in the rough early work of nation building. But man does not willingly live by bread alone for he has often wants besides the material ones, and colonies now-a-days have better opportunity of satisfying them. They are no longer remote from the great headquarters of civilisation. The steam engine and the telegraph have altered that. Nothing of interest or consequence happens in -Europe, which we do not hear all about in a few weeks, or if of particular importance in-a couple of hours. ; Ariel's girdle the poet dreamt of three hundred years ago is at last. realised. * To travel and see many cities and many men was not a great while ago a task of much difficulty,pfteneveri of perilous adventure, and the travelled man was «.n oracle for

the'rest of his life. But the travelled now are legion. To cross the world or visit any. quarter of it has become a mere pleasure trip, to be done if desired at a. slight expenditure 0 £ money or time. It is said 50,000 Americans cross the Atlantic every autumn. How maay thousand Australasians likewise; visit Europe everv year, for with the present facilities of voyaging the widest, stretch.or is practically but a ferry.

Colonies are not where they were a generation back. The seal of their geographical seclusion has been broken. We have ceased to be distant from the world's intellectual centres; and for progress in the refining influences which embellish life, how stand the opportunities, now of new countries cesopared with old ones ? There they have large classes with leisure and culture, fitted by the "possession both of mean's and taste to promote the development of art and literature. And there, too, they have great galleries and art schoals. On the other hand, the circumstances of the vast mass of the ~ people in new countries give them an incomparable advantage over the mass of the home population, and would render them far more easily receptive of refining intellectual influences, provided the means were present of awakening the insight. The sad battle of life, the struggle for bread, is too hard and engrossing in the old country for any considerable spread of such gentler and more elevating cares. The colonies are now fully within the circle of the world's active life, and the material circumstances of the great body of thenpeople are altogether different from those of the same classes at home, and hence the establishment in. the chief tswns of the means of educating the eye and taste by. art galleries, and exhibitions, and schools of .design, and spreading'ideas and knowledge by access to good libraries, can exercise a far wider popular effect out "here than is possible in the fatherland. In other colonies, as in old countries, the State provides such things. In "Victoria the Government yearly dis-. burse large sums on the gallery of paintings and sculpture, which shares ' a magnificent building in Melbourne with a library of one hundred thousand volumes. So too in Sydney, the arts as well as literature are thus provided for- by Parliament and Government. In Auckland the State does nothing for us, and we would be left wholly without any such means of culture if it were not for the noble benefactions of individuals and their munificent and discriminating exertions. Other New Zealand cities, bo fortunate as to be originally endowed with public lands for the purpose, do not remain so completely outside the consideration of the State. Yet no other city that we know, of in all these colonies equally combines the natural advantages which tend to make a home for. the arts,, and which cannot fail to make them in due course flourish here We have the climate and the scenery, and, as precious as either, that enlightened and enthusiastic spirit which is contagious, and whijfa, in the absence of State help, has given us books and paintings and sculpture and art teaching and bequests for a suitable edifice to house them—a list of benefactors to whom Auckland may point with pride, like the mother of the Gracchi'to her sons. Such a start as this is the sorest evidence that the arts will find congenial root here, in man as well as ia surrounding nature. The fourth annual Exhibition of the Society of Arts is now being held, Artists from all parts of the colony have contributed, and the various exhibits are more numerous than on any previous occasion. The society and its art union deserve the hearty support of the public. We must :remember that while the patronage of the State, so powerful for the. promotion of the arts, continues absent, art unions are necessary. They distribute numbers of good pictures and prints: They help to popularise and spread a taste for art, and make people talk and think about it. They have a share in keeping artists among us, and in enabling painting or sculpture to be pursued with professional,..not merely amateur devotion; ■ _

We must '. walk 1 before we run. By and by Auckland will hold art exhibitions on a great scale — perhaps enriched by loans from Europe of ths old masters in painting, and the Greet immortals in sculpture. The cognoscenti are as chary of selling such productions as the Arabs of the desert are of selling their famous coursers of the Prophet's breed. All honour and thanks to Mr. Mackelvie that he, nevertheless, contrived to get hold of a Guido and ß Pontormo for us. But if the connoisseurs are unwilling to wholly P srt with them, they are often generous to lend. For instance, at the Industrial Exhibition, which was held ia Dublin in .1853, a gallery was set aside to contain works of art, and a number of the European Sovereigns lent for this educational service some of the grandest works in their world-famous collections. The Emperor of the French, the King of Prussia, the King of the Belgians, and the King of Bavaria, were among the contributors! It was very generous; for if any of those works were lost at sea, the misfortune would be irreparable. At .the .present moment an exhibitioA of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds is on view in'the Grosvenor Gallery, London ;. and we hear that " a long list of nobles," who hold uj their collections the' masterpieces oj that great painter, have forwarded them to London to render the exhibition complete.