GOVERNOR ON ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20374, 1 October 1929, Page 10

GOVERNOR ON ART.

TALE OF A NIGHTMARE.

Recalling a speech which Lady Alico Fcrgusson had orico niado on " Sincerity in Art," the Governor-General, Sir Charles Fcrgusson, told an amusing story when opening tho arts exhibition in Wellington. He well rcmcmbored, ho said, a picture which Her Excellency had painted during tho early days of her married life, of a road through woodland, with beech trees. He had pointed out, on the grounds of sincerity, a branch on a treo in the painting which was not in I lie landscape, but/ the reply was that bv putting it in the picluro was better balanced. This, His Excellency remarked amid laughter, gave him an insight into tho ways of artists: That night he had a dream," in fact, a nightmare, in which he was pursued through tho same wood by a beast, a taniwha of tho very worst, which sent him flying down tho road shown in Her Excellency's picture. As he ran he thought of the treo with its convicnient branch on which to tako refuge. " Too late, I remembered that this did not exist excopt in the imagination of my wife," concluded Ilis Excellency amid renewed laughter, "and with a despairing yell I awoko!"