ART BY THE YARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20300, 6 July 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

ART BY THE YARD.

A REMARKABLE PAINTING.

HALF AN ACRE OF CANVAS

From Budapest comes news of a picture problem. The heirs of Tivadar Csontvary, the Hungarian artist, are baffled by the question of what to do with his collection of paintings, each as big as the front of a good-sized houso. There was talk of selling them by the yard, cutting off bits which took the fancy of patrons, but so formidable a task was even their unfurling that when it was decided to photograph them the fire brigade was called in to help spread them out in tho great courtyard of tho city " Mansion House." Now a relative has bought tho lot, and is storing them in his garage fur tho present. 11'is'difficult to bo didactic about huge pictures, for no one knows how many be lurking here and thorp about the world, but it is supposed that the largest is tho remarkable " Pantheon de la Guerre," on which worked numerous French painters, whom age or disability prevented from going to the Front, says a writer in John o' London's Weekly. It took four years to complete, occupied half an acre of canvas, and shows 15,000 figures and 6000 portraits. Two tons of paint were used.

When this picture was sent to America for exhibition last year it was parked in a huge oblong crate like a couple of railway carriages on end. Floating derricks at Lo Havre swung it aboard the liner Paris, but it was too big to go into tho hold, and had to travel on deck. It was the largest package over shipped across tho Atlantic.

In Windsor Castle is a panorama j icturo of tho coronation of George V., 138 ft. long, showing more than 300 hones and 3000 men. A painting occupying 200 square feet, which was Sir Edward Bui noJones' last work, was placed on view at the Guildhall Art Gallery two or three years ago. This " King Arthur in the Vale of Avalon" is 1011. by 20ft. Intended for the library at Naworth Castle, it was found unsuitable for that position and was placed by tho painter in his studio at Campden Hill. Even biggei are the Val Prinsep picture of a Delhi durbar, shown at tho Academy of 1880, where it had a whole wall to itselt, and the Phillips portrait group of the House of Commons, shown at an Academy show about 50 years ago. The latter is 17ft. by 20ft. In a case that came up in tho London Law Courts last year a litigant mentioned that ho had painted a Derby Day picture 55ft. long by 12ft. higti. Of tho big Old Masters, two of tho largest are tho Tintoretto " Paradise," in the Doge's Palace at Venice, 84ft. by 34tt., and tlie Michael Atigelo mural on tho ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 1331t. by 431't.