JOHN GULLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

JOHN GULLY.

THE TURNER OF NEW ZEALAND

BY MONA GORDON.

It may not be going too far to call John Gully the Turner of New Zealand, in so fat' as a water-colour painter can be classed with the great master. Not that the two are in anything similar except in their treatment of distant effects of atmosphere and light; but because Gully is the greatest landscape painter of this country as was Turner of Europe—so may the lesser be not inappropriately called the Turner of a new land and a narrower sphere.

The real New Zealand—her glory of mountains, her placid river reaches, her ravines deep with tho green wealth of bush, her ineffable heights of gleaming glacier and wind-tossed cloud, her skies shot through with the fire of sunset, her hills blue with tho peace of summer or wrinkled, hoar beneath the icy touch of winter, her atmosphere, her very self all these have been caught by Gully's art in such a way that no other interpretations of New Zealand can at all compare with his.

In looking at almost any ono of his paintings you are immediately transported far away beneath heights of mist-wrapped peaks, down among the broken lights and shadows of some translucent river, or out into the broad plains of sunlit distance; but wherever it may be there is more in it than mere scenery, there is. a soul behind the picture, an elusive something beckoning you into the heart of that perfect thing which it mirrors—it is the soul of the real New Zealand. It is only given to the very highest genius to paint soul; to some, it is the human soul which lies like a thing alive on faces of men and women in the world's great masterpieces; to others, the great wide soul of the sea, which chafes and beats upon the canvas; but to John Gully it was given to visualise the soul which lies in lovely landscape, and in so doing he unconsciously painted the soul of a countryNew Zealand—the land of his adoption and our birth. The Artist's Life.

The following particulars of' the artist's life have been given me by the kindness of his only surviving son, Mr. H. V., Gully, of Wellington, who writes as follows: —"John Gully was born at Bath, England, in 1825. He was brought up as an accountant and obtained a situation as accountant in the Bath Savings Bank. As a boy he had a few lessons in watercolour painting. Beyond this he was entirely self-taught. In 1846 be married Jane Moore, nee Eyles . . . and resided at Bath.

"In 1852, attracted by Hursthouse's book on New Zealand, in which he describes Taranaki as ' the garden of New Zealand ' and gives a flourishing account of the fertility of the soil, etc., he made up his mind to emigrate, and accordingly embarked with his wife and family in the John Phillips, a small barque of 500 tons. After a long and tedious voyage (6 months) she arrived at Auckland, and from thence proceeded to New Plymouth. " Gully's idea was to take up bushfarming, for which he was peculiarly unfitted; and he accordingly took up bush land near Omata, about six miles from New Plymouth. Maoris were the only labourers available, and, after starting to clear the land of bush and bring it into cultivation, he gave up the idea. He lived at Omata for a time and then came into the town of New Plymouth. " The Taranaki War broke out, and, like most of the settlers, he volunteered for active service, and served in the volunteers until he left Taranaki. His constitution, however, was not strong enough to stand the exposure and hardships of active service, and his health broke down. Acting on medical advice, he removed with his wife and family to Nelson in 1860, and remained there until his death on November 3, 1888. He obtained a situation in Nelson under the Provincial Government as draughtsman in the Survey Office, which he held for some years. Painting in New Zealand.

" He did a certain amount of painting in a small way before he left England; and at New Plymouth, attracted by the beautiful scenery, especially Mount Egmont, he took to painting again; and while in the Survey .Office in Nelson he spent most of his spare time in painting. After some years ... he mside up his mind to give up the office and devote himself entirely to the former, which he did. He made many sketching tours in the Dominion, among others to Mount Cook, the Southern Lakes, Milford Sound, and one to Australia. Besides exhibiting in all the Dominion exhibitions, he exhibited at Melbourne, and at the Royal Water-Colour Society, London." Those who know ana love his work will be glad to learn that most of it remains in this country. Modern fashion having decreed a phase of impossible colour schemes and patterned wallpapers, we find that real art has no place on the walls of to-day; but the time will come when Gully's works will be above price; though for the time they are as good things held in abeyance, unsought save by the few. Among his most beautiful paintings are those of the Southern Alps and the glacial regions of New Zealand. He had the rare gift of painting snow and the shadows of unow with the true discernment of one who feels as well as sees. His snow always gleams, clouds melt into it, and distance wraps it round with her veil of wondrous blue, and what is more, it is cold.

Fine Examples. In his Mount Cook with the Hooker Glacier, the Heaven-piercer rises against a sky of tender sunset light, misty shades of approaching evening are gathering in the valley below, and the Hooker gives the impression of its ice having been literally poured into it from the towering heights above, which is exactly the effect of a glacier-filled valley. M:itre Peak forms another glorious example of the artist's power to render snow under sunset light; and from the West Coast he caught the queen peaks of New Zealand (Cook and Tasman) under a grey and stormy sky, adding to their effect of wild, inhospitable beauty. From his own bush land at Omata he painted the beautiful cone of Eginont with the ranges in the foreground, flushed heather from the light of a summer sunset; and th« hills of Nelson and gorges of many a southern river opened up their vistas before his ready brush. In .1.877 a portfolio of lithographed reproductions was published and described by Dr. Julius von Haast, giving some faint impression of the origins,ls. But it is to be hoped that the chief galleries of this country will not let one of his water-colours escape them until they have all a representative collection of the varied and wonderful genius of John Gully, who, above all others, rendered the wild and rugged body and the wistful, elusive soul of the real New Zealand.